Frame & Field Studios Business Plan — Capacity: The Shooting Day and the Editing Day
Why a studio sells shooting days but is limited by editing days, and how the 7.5 photographer to 4.5 editor ratio is derived.
Capacity: The Shooting Day and the Editing Day
Jump to section
- Overview & contents
- i. Important Notice and Basis of Preparation
- 1. What Artificial Intelligence Has Taken, and What It Has Not
- 2. Executive Summary
- 3. Service Lines, Clients and Pricing
- 4. Capacity: The Shooting Day and the Editing Day
- 5. SWOT and Competitive Position
- 6. Organisation, Rights and Compliance
- 7. Financial Plan
- 8. Break-Even and Debt Service
- 9. Investment Analysis
- 10. Sensitivity and Scenario Analysis
- 11. Risk Analysis
- 12. Implementation Roadmap
- 13. Key Performance Indicators
- 14. Key Assumptions
- 15. Conclusion and Recommendation
- A. Appendix A: Consolidated Financial Summary
- B. Appendix B: Capacity, Mix and Cost Schedules
- C. Appendix C: Funding, Debt and Working Capital Schedules
- D. Appendix D: Risk Register
- E. Appendix E: Glossary
- 4.1 The unit of account
- 4.2 The editing bottleneck
- 4.3 The economics of a shooting day
4.1 The unit of account
A commercial studio sells days. A photographer can be in one place at a time, works about 232 days a year after leave and administration, and bills only a portion of those. Everything in this plan reduces to how many days are billed and at what rate.
|
Capacity assumption |
Value |
Note |
|---|---|---|
|
Working days a year |
232 |
After leave, public holidays and administration |
|
Billable utilisation at maturity |
71% |
The single most important assumption in the plan |
|
Photographers at maturity |
7.5 |
From 3.0 in Year 1 |
|
Editors at maturity |
4.5 |
From 1.5 in Year 1 |
|
Editing ratio |
0.87 |
Days of post-production per shooting day, blended |
|
Editing ratio, motion work |
2.4 |
The highest day rate carries the heaviest editing load |
|
Billable days at maturity |
1 195 days |
Constrained by editing, not by shooting |
4.2 The editing bottleneck
|
Year 1 |
Year 2 |
Year 3 |
Year 4 |
Year 5 |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Photographers |
3.0 |
4.5 |
6.0 |
7.0 |
7.5 |
|
Editors |
1.5 |
2.5 |
3.5 |
4.0 |
4.5 |
|
Utilisation assumed |
58% |
64% |
68% |
70% |
71% |
|
Shooting days possible |
404 |
668 |
947 |
1 137 |
1 235 |
|
Editing capacity, in shoot-day terms |
398 |
664 |
929 |
1 062 |
1 195 |
|
Billable days delivered |
398 |
664 |
929 |
1 062 |
1 195 |
|
Binding constraint |
editing |
editing |
editing |
editing |
editing |
|
Movement |
Effect on Year 5 EBITDA |
Why |
|---|---|---|
|
Editing ratio 15% worse |
(R2 311 197) |
Editing binds harder; every lost editing day is a lost billable day |
|
Editing ratio 15% better |
+R515 235 |
Gains stop once shooting capacity becomes the constraint instead |
|
Utilisation 8 points lower |
(R1 530 984) |
Shooting falls below editing capacity and becomes the binding constraint |
|
Utilisation 8 points higher |
+R0 |
No gain at all; the additional days cannot be edited |
|
Both levers moved together |
+R2 576 175 |
More than the sum of the parts, because the constraint moves with them |
The asymmetry is the operating lesson. Both levers protect the downside far more than they create upside, because whichever one is not moved becomes the constraint. A studio that invests in editing without filling the diary has bought idle capacity; one that fills the diary without investing in editing has bought a backlog. The pair must move together, and the trigger points in Section 11.3 test both.
4.3 The economics of a shooting day
|
Per billable shooting day |
Amount |
Share of the day rate |
Note |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Second shooter and assistant |
(R2 450) |
11.7% |
|
|
Talent, styling and props |
(R1 180) |
5.6% |
|
|
Travel, vehicle and location costs |
(R980) |
4.7% |
|
|
Outsourced retouching overflow |
(R880) |
4.2% |
Elastic editing capacity at a margin cost |
|
Equipment hire for specialist briefs |
(R760) |
3.6% |
|
|
Cloud storage, delivery and licensing |
(R340) |
1.6% |
|
|
Consumables, media and catering |
(R290) |
1.4% |
|
|
Total direct cost |
(R6 880) |
32.8% |
|
|
Contribution per day |
R14 066 |
67.2% |
Contribution of 67.2 per cent looks generous until it is set against the fixed cost base. Photographers and editors are salaried, so their cost sits in overhead rather than in the direct column. The gross-looking margin per day is what pays for a team that is on the payroll whether or not the diary is full — which is why utilisation, not day-rate margin, is the number that matters.