Timing, grouping and trimming

Plan time in whole frames, group shots of one world into one generation, and plan more generated length than the film uses.

A window is the stretch of the film, in seconds and frames, that a shot fills. Your shot plan gives every shot one.

Windows in whole frames

• Plan on the film master's grid: 6 frames (0.25 s) at 24 fps, 5 frames (0.2 s) at 25 fps. A music-first film uses its beat grid. Shot windows add up exactly to each scene, and scenes to the film master (30 s = 720 frames at 24 fps, 750 at 25 fps).

• Name the delivery frame rate per version:

  • The default: every film master is 24 fps (Seedance's rate).

  • A 25 fps master, only when filmed footage with sync sound carries the film or the main delivery is 25 fps TV. Generated shots sit in a TV-led master as speed-up copies, and beside filmed sync footage by frame repeat.

  • A 25 fps TV version of a 24 fps master is made by the speed-up, re-cut from handles (720 → 750 frames; frame repeat is the fallback). Where one is planned, every shot keeps a tail handle of at least about one frame per second of its used length (two frames for a 2 s shot) (see Graphics, captions, versions and delivery → 25 fps TV versions by speed-up).

• Floors:

  • about 2 s for a shot inside a multi-shot generation;

  • 0.5 s only for rhythm inserts in fast montage;

  • no fixed floor yet for a window carrying an action event: you measure it from the sample takes (see Planning, budgets and takes → Free measurements from takes made anyway).

• Reading time [best available, not yet validated]: every window carrying a title, sign, claim or end line holds at least the client's reading-time figure, or about 1.5 s for a short title and about 2 s for a title with a line, end card included. Reading time is cut length; the camera still moves inside the shot. If reading time pushes the film past its agreed length, list the cause and the shorter route, and ask the client where the brief fixed the length.

• Speaking and voiceover windows come from the recorded lines. Until a line is locked, mark its window "provisional".

• Music: if the treatment cuts on the music, lay windows on its tempo grid with handles, so cuts can move to the real beats of the track chosen later. A music-first film lays every window on the locked track's bar lines, in whole beats, with cuts on downbeats or a planned off-beat. Until the track locks, use the treatment's planned tempo and mark the windows provisional (see Music → The music-first route).

Grouping shots into generations [proven]:

• a continuous shot is one generation;

• cut shots in one world share one multi-shot generation;

• give each of these its own generation:

  • a packshot or hero macro;

  • an undesigned change of world;

  • a speaking shot whose recording must stay exact (one speaker per generation);

  • contact that must read;

  • more than three acting characters without a staging map;

  • a dialogue exchange longer than one generation holds;

  • physics-heavy action next to close micro-performance;

  • a shot that failed twice inside its clip.

Give each multi-shot generation its format (one continuous shot, timed shots, or count-locked), and record which shots share it and where each window sits inside the clip (see Video with Seedance → Multi-shot formats). Fast cutting multiplies cost: 27 shots as 27 separate generations of at least 4 s is 108 s or more of 1080p per round.

Sizing: whole seconds, 4–30, always set. The slot sizes and handles are in Video with Seedance → Multi-shot formats and Video with Seedance → Joins, endings, extension and the video edit.

Expect heavy trimming (decided). One published Seedance 2.5 ad kept about 10.5 of 18 generated seconds, and about 41 s of planned windows became a 30 s film. Plan generously; never plan a film that needs every generated second.

Sources

• @adilinthewildtempo (blog) (the trimming ratio; worlds per generation); Higgsfield's katana workflow (slot sizing).