The shooting ratio in filmmaking and television production is the ratio between the total duration of its footage shot and that which results from its final cut.
A film with a shooting ratio of 2:1 would have shot twice the amount of footage that was used in the film. In real terms this means that 120 minutes of footage would have been shot to produce a film of 60 minutes in length.
Shooting ratios can vary greatly between productions but a typical shooting ratio for a production using film stock will be between 6:1 and 10:1 (such as a documentary film), whereas a similar production using video is likely to be much higher. This is a direct result of the significant difference in price between video tape stock and film stock and the necessary processing.
In digital cinema, shooting ratios are less limited by price of stock because of being stored on reusable digital media, such as hard drives – in this case shooting ratios are limited rather by the expense (in time, labor, and money) of actually shooting, rather than of media.
Famous quotes containing the words shooting and/or ratio:
“I’ll tell you one thing. If a little green man pops out at me I’m shooting first and asking questions later.”
—Edward D. Wood, Jr. (1922–1978)
“Official dignity tends to increase in inverse ratio to the importance of the country in which the office is held.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)