Filming & Production
Shooting ratio
Also called: footage ratio
Shooting ratio is the length of everything recorded divided by the length of what ships. A 12-minute video cut from 4 hours of rushes is a 20:1 ratio. Documentary work runs high by nature and a scripted talking-head piece has no excuse to.
The number diagnoses the day rather than scoring it. Track it for a month and the pattern usually points at the script rather than the shoot, because the takes that pile up are the ones where you were still working out what you meant.