Shooting Ratio for Doc's

They Live

They Live

Well-known member
I'm sure this varies in the extreme, but what is a usual shooting ratio for a documentary? I'm working on one right now and I can't believe how many tapes we're blowing through. It's just shoot shoot shoot.

Maybe a better question would be, for those of you who have shot documentaries, what did your shooting ratio end up being? I know I saw one thread where a guy said he had to cut 300 hours of footage down to 90 minutes.
 
Yeah,
If it wasn't me, I'll tell you I'm working on a 300+ hour film hoping to cut to feature length, but much of it's is sports games w/ 2 cameras which adds up quickly. Still you better expect a lot.
It varies way too much to make a call for what a "standard" might be. It depends on the director/Producer, planning, subjectmatter, intended format. Then if you consider money and stuff. If it's up to you and you have a feeling one way or the other, or some opinion about it: shoot less, or negotiate w/ the director about shooting less, or maybe making some more solid plans about where they're going with this and what NEEDS to be shot. If it's just getting going, I'd bet you'll scale back eventually once you've all gotten settled into a grove and see where things are going.
 
You know,
I will add this, though. I think the DVX is the greatest thing that could've happened for doc shooting. It's cheap, and it looks just fine in the 24PA mode, you can shoot for what feels like forever without problems and plow through tape with no hitches. Ease of use and quick setup. With a low budget it is perfect.
If you want to make a fiction or commercial thing, and it's actually worth a damn raise proper funds and get/rent a proper film or broadcast camera, save the DVX for the run n' gun. Modern high volume doc shooting would be totally inaccessible and still look like crap without the advent of the DVX. Anyway, I guess anyone here already knows that.
 
For the travel docus I have made the ratio has been 1:15 to 1:30.

Even if you had to use a hundred tapes they are almost the cheapest part of the video. (unless you do not calculate anything for the work for anybody...)
 
Guess I'm doing better than I thought. I previewed some of our tapes, and man, there is a lot of repetitious stuff. But I guess you just roll and roll, so you capture those solid moments that are totally unpredictable. I just feel bad for my editor.
 
I would think if you want a good editor you need to make sure he/she is paid well and happy so go through your footage and eliminate the junk, don't make him/her do it. 300 hours? Whoa! Apocalypse Now (not a doc) had 230 hours and took over two years to cut. And thats a narrative. Documentaries need more experimenting and tweaking to "find" the story.
 
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