By Nelson Nunez, Producer at Gorilla Creative
If you've ever scheduled a shoot with several actors spread across multiple days, you've run into the exact question a day-out-of-days report exists to answer. Who is needed on which day? Who is sitting on hold? And what is all of that costing you?
The day-out-of-days report, usually shortened to DOOD, is a planning document that came out of the feature film and television world, where productions juggle large casts over weeks of shooting. It's one of those tools that looks intimidating from the outside and turns out to be simple once you understand what each column is doing.
This guide explains the day out of days report from the ground up: what it is, what the status codes mean, how it fits alongside your shooting schedule, and how to build one. It's written for producers working in branded content, commercials, and corporate video, not just feature crews. We'll also be honest about when you actually need one, because plenty of shoots don't.
A day out of days report is a grid. Down one side you list every cast member in the production. Across the top you list every shoot day. In each cell, a short code shows that person's status on that day. Are they starting, working, on hold, or finished?
The name describes exactly what it tracks. For each person, it maps their days across the production: the day they start, the days they work, the days they're held between work days, and the day they finish.
It isn't only for actors. On larger productions, the same grid tracks anything that has to be scheduled and paid across multiple days: stunt performers, picture vehicles, animals, and sometimes specialty crew or equipment. Anything with availability and a cost attached to it can live on the report.
The DOOD is a summary document. It doesn't replace your shooting schedule or your script breakdown. It sits alongside them and pulls the cast information into a single view that answers one question well: across the whole shoot, when is each person needed?
The codes are where the report does its work. Most of a DOOD's value comes from reading the pattern of codes across each row.
Here are the standard status codes you'll see on a day out of days report.
CodeStatusWhat it meansCost impactSStartThe performer's first day on the production.Marks the beginning of paid employment.WWorkA day the performer is on set and working.A billable working day.HHoldA day the performer isn't working but is kept exclusively available to your production, between work days.Usually still paid. This is the hidden cost the report surfaces.FFinishThe performer's last day on the production.Marks the end of paid employment.SWStart WorkFirst day on the production, and they work it.Combines a start and a working day.WFWork FinishLast day on the production, and they work it.A working day that also closes out employment.SWFStart Work FinishThe performer starts, works, and finishes on a single day.A one-day engagement.TTravelA day spent traveling to or from the shoot.Often paid, depending on the agreement.D / PUDrop / PickupThe performer is released (dropped) with the intent to recall (pick up) on a later day.Used to avoid paying holds across a long gap. Subject to union rules.
The most important code to understand is H, for hold. A hold day is a day a performer isn't working but is kept exclusively available to your production, which usually means they're still being paid. Hold days are the hidden cost the report is designed to make visible.
The DOOD is downstream of two documents you build first.
It starts with the script breakdown, where you identify every character, location, and element in each scene. From there you build the shooting schedule, which sequences those scenes into shoot days. For a deeper look at turning a script into a shoot plan, see our guide to script breakdown for scheduling.
Once the schedule is sequenced, the DOOD falls out of it. You already know which scenes shoot on which day, and the breakdown tells you which cast members are in each scene. Combine the two and you can see each actor's pattern across the shoot.
This is also where terminology matters. The shooting schedule is the scene-by-scene plan for the shoot itself. The DOOD is a cast-focused summary built from it. Both feed your project timeline and budget, the big-picture plan that tracks the production from green light to delivery. If you ever mix the two up, our explainer on the shooting schedule vs. project timeline sorts out which document does what.
One thing to remember: if your schedule changes, your DOOD changes. The report is only as accurate as the schedule it's built from. Build the schedule first, in Dayframe or a spreadsheet, and treat the DOOD as a view layered on top of it.
Building one by hand is straightforward once the schedule is locked. Here's the process.
Down the left column, list every actor in the production. Add any other paid elements that need tracking, such as picture vehicles, animals, or stunt performers. One row per person or element.
One column per shoot day, in order. Label them with the date and day number so the grid lines up with your shooting schedule.
Using the breakdown, put a W in every cell where that person appears in a scene scheduled for that day. This is the skeleton of the report.
For each person, the first working day becomes a Start Work (SW) and the last becomes a Work Finish (WF). If someone shoots everything in a single day, that's a Start Work Finish (SWF).
Any day between a person's start and finish where they aren't working becomes a hold (H). This step is the entire reason the report exists. Holds are easy to miss in a schedule and expensive to ignore in a budget.
Mark travel days (T) where they apply. If a performer has a long gap between work days, consider a drop and pickup (D / PU) instead of paying holds across the gap, keeping any union rules in mind.
Here's a quick example. Say you're shooting a three-day branded commercial with a lead and two supporting actors. The lead works all three days, so their row reads SW, W, WF. One supporting actor works only days one and three. Their row reads SW, H, WF, with a paid hold sitting in the middle on day two.
That single H is the kind of thing a DOOD makes obvious. Seeing it might push you to regroup that actor's scenes onto consecutive days so you can drop the hold entirely. A change like that is hard to spot in a scene-by-scene schedule and jumps off the page in a DOOD.
The report is really a budgeting tool wearing a scheduling tool's clothes. Here's where the savings come from.
When an actor is held on a paid day in the middle of their run, the grid shows it instantly. Often you can regroup their scenes onto consecutive days and cut the hold entirely. On a cast of several actors, those saved hold days add up fast.
If a performer works five days spread across two weeks, the report makes it easy to compare a weekly rate against the daily-plus-hold math. Sometimes one structure is dramatically cheaper than the other, and you can only see it once the days are laid out.
A talent availability conflict is far cheaper to solve in pre-production than on the morning of a shoot day. Laid out on a grid, a conflict between an actor's availability and the days you need them is obvious weeks ahead.
Agents want to know exactly which days their client is needed and which days are holds. A DOOD answers that in a single view, which makes booking conversations faster and cleaner.
Here's the part a lot of DOOD guides skip. Most branded and corporate shoots don't need a formal day out of days report.
If you're shooting a one or two day corporate video with a handful of on-camera people who are all there for the full shoot, a DOOD adds paperwork without adding clarity. Your shooting schedule already tells everyone where to be, and a clear call sheet handles the rest. At Gorilla Creative, the branded content and corporate work we produce rarely calls for one. For a standard one or two day shoot, the schedule does the job on its own.
The report starts to earn its place when one or more of these is true:
If none of those apply, a clear shooting schedule and a simple call sheet will carry the day. Use the report when the cast complexity justifies it, not because a feature-film checklist told you to.
Even producers who use the report regularly make these. Each one is easy to avoid.
A hold isn't a free day off. In most cases you're paying the performer to stay available. If your budget only accounts for working days, every hold is an unplanned cost.
The report is built from the shooting schedule. If you build it while the schedule is still shifting, you'll rebuild it every time a scene moves. Lock the schedule first, then summarize it.
Picture vehicles, animals, and minors with restricted working hours all have scheduling and cost implications. If they're only tracked in your head, they'll get missed. Give them a row.
A stale DOOD is worse than none, because people trust it. When the schedule changes, update the DOOD in the same pass so the two never disagree.
DOOD stands for day out of days. It's a report that maps each cast member's status across every shoot day of a production, showing when they start, work, are held, and finish. The name refers to tracking each person's days in and out of the production.
A shooting schedule is the scene-by-scene plan for the shoot itself: what you're filming, where, and in what order on each day. A day out of days report is a cast-focused summary built from that schedule, showing which days each performer is needed. The schedule drives the shoot day. The DOOD drives cast logistics and budgeting.
Often, no. A short shoot with a small cast who are all present the whole time doesn't need one, since the shooting schedule already covers it. A DOOD becomes useful when you have multiple cast members across multiple days, when the shoot is long enough that hold days add up, or when you're working under a SAG-AFTRA agreement with rules tied to starts, holds, and finishes.
A hold day is a day a performer isn't working but is kept exclusively available to your production, usually between two working days. In most cases the performer is still paid for a hold, which is why surfacing and minimizing holds is one of the main reasons the report exists.
A day out of days report isn't complicated once you see it for what it is: a cast-and-cost map built on top of your shooting schedule. On the right production it saves real money and prevents real headaches. On a simple shoot, a clean schedule is enough on its own.
Either way, it all starts with a solid shooting schedule. That's the document everything else is built from, and it's what we built Dayframe to make fast. Build the schedule first, and the day out of days report, when you need one, is a short step away.