A working production and post-production schedule for SPENT's field-vérité season, synthesized from the post-production responsibilities sheet, the visual & equipment proposal, and the production budget. Tentative — no start date has been set.
This season of SPENT is built as a vérité field series, not a studio interview show: "embedded, not staged," per the visual & equipment proposal. The schedule below treats the season as a staggered pipeline — one field block (1 travel day + 3 shoot days, down from the source budget's original 5 shoot days) entering roughly every two weeks, each episode then running its edit → finish cycle — so a single director, DP, lead editor and assistant editor can carry the whole season without idle time or backlog. Camera is FX3-only now: iPhone videography has been removed and the FX3 A-cam/B-cam package, previously a reserve for select episodes, is the standard for every episode. Use the toggle above to size the season at 6 or 8 episodes.
Before this schedule is used to staff or greenlight dates, the source budget itself needs reconciling. Three layers of the workbook disagree with each other.
The 01_TOP SHEET declares a season total of $683,100 ($68,310/episode). But summing each department tab's own stated total (03_ATL + 04_PRODUCTION + 05_POST + 06_TRAVEL + 07_INSURANCE + 09_CONTINGENCY) comes to $628,223 — a $54,877 gap. A third figure, the 10_PER_EPISODE template, sums to $55,422.50/episode ($554,225 if × 10) — a different number again. The pattern (Top Sheet figures match neither the detail tabs nor each other) suggests the summary rows are hardcoded rather than formula-linked, and have drifted after edits to the line items.
| Department | Top Sheet | Detail tab total | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Above the Line | $229,500 | $212,000 | $17,500 |
| Production | $229,350 | $204,473 | $24,877 |
| Post Production | $93,450 | $93,450 | — |
| Travel / Logistics | $55,800 | $55,800 | — |
| Insurance / Legal | $26,000 | $26,000 | — |
| Contingency | $49,000 | $36,500 | $12,500 |
| Season total | $683,100 | $628,223 | $54,877 |
That $628,223 detail-tab figure — not the drifted Top Sheet number — is the base this page started from. Every department tab's own line items split cleanly into a flat, season-wide cost and a per-episode rate; two later instructions have since changed what counts as which, documented in full in the source trail below.
Field block: 1 travel day + 3 shoot days (down from 5 shoot days), FX3-only. Every crew line explicitly priced per field day — director, DP, audio mixer, assistant camera, DIT, release coordinator, PA/driver, on-set lunch, craft services — is now priced at 4 field days instead of 5. The iPhone equipment line is removed entirely; the FX3 A-cam/B-cam package, previously a $6,500 season-wide reserve for select episodes, is now priced per episode since it's the standard camera for every episode. The producer's broader 7-day prep/shoot/wrap/approvals allocation, all post-production rates, and travel/insurance/contingency lines are unaffected. Net effect: flat season cost drops to $149,125 (iPhone and the FX3 reserve move out of the flat bucket), and the per-episode rate rises to $49,052.50 (FX3 now costed on every episode outweighs the day-count saving). Season total = $149,125 + $49,052.50 × episodes — the formula driving the toggle above.
Rights & clearances, E&O, and production insurance were already in the source budget's Insurance/Legal tab and are carried through unchanged — see the breakdown under Budget by Episode below.
Merged from the budget's Above-the-Line / Production line items and the post-production responsibilities sheet's ownership model.
| Role | Stage | Owns | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Executive Producers (×4) | Season | Cox, Khalfani-Cox, Archer, Love — season flat fee, oversight | $7,500 ea. flat |
| Series Director | Capture → sign-off | Editorial intent; signs off on structure, color direction, mix notes, final masters | $900/day |
| Series Producer | All stages | Schedule, approvals, clearance tracking, delivery deadlines, note-tracking chain | $700/day |
| Director of Photography | Capture | Main camera / A-cam coverage of the episode's subject | $800/day |
| Audio Mixer | Capture | Field audio, wireless/lav kit | $600/day |
| Assistant Camera Operator | Capture | Second-camera coverage, reactions & context | $450/day |
| DIT / Media Technician | Field media control → offload | Verified offload, checksums, folder structure, handoff logs | $500/day |
| Release Coordinator | Capture | Releases & appearance clearance tracking | $350/day |
| Production Assistant / Driver | Capture | Driving, general field support | $300/day |
| Lead Editor | Ingest → fine cut | Resolve project setup, sync, stringouts, rough & fine cut, online prep | $3,200/wk |
| Assistant Editor | Sync → selects | Supports organization, bins, selects reels | $1,600/wk |
| Colorist / Finishing Editor | Color → export | LUT strategy, matches FX3 A-cam/B-cam, online conform, master exports | $950/day |
| Sound / Mix | Fairlight mix | Dialog cleanup, music/SFX balance, loudness targets | $900/day |
iPhone videography has been removed. The FX3 hybrid setup — originally the visual & equipment proposal's expanded option for festival/high-density episodes — is now the standard package for every episode.
A 2-week shoot cadence keeps one episode moving through post while the next is in the field, so the single lead-editor/AE team never idles and never backs up. The cadence is sized to the editor/AE's post workload, which the shoot condensation doesn't change, so it holds even though the shoot block itself now only fills part of its week. Shown in production weeks from a tentative Week 1 — no calendar start date has been set.
Field block is now 1 travel day + 3 shoot days (4 days, down from 5 shoot days), shifting everything after it 1 day earlier than a straight condensation would. Post-production itself — editor, AE, colorist, mix — is unchanged. Mapped to the 14-stage ownership model from the post-production responsibilities sheet; days are relative to that episode's own travel start (Day 1).
Adapted from the post-production responsibilities sheet (iPhone references removed since iPhone capture is no longer used) — these apply to every episode in the cycle above, no exceptions.
Department split per episode, scaled from each department tab's own flat-vs-per-episode rates (see the reconciliation note above) for the episode count selected above.
$26,000 season-wide, unaffected by episode count or the field-day/camera changes above — carried straight through from 07_INSURANCE.
19 working days total. Field block (travel + shoot) is 4 days, down from 5 shoot days with no travel day broken out; edit and finish are unchanged. Lead editor hands-on time is 2 of those 10 edit-phase days' worth of weeks (per-episode rate basis); AE support (1.5 wks) overlaps days 6–14. Colorist and sound mix are each a single dedicated day inside the finish block.
Same verification discipline as the production's existing audit methodology: every scheduling assumption below is marked by how solid its source is.
| Status | Assumption | Applied to schedule | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Verified | Source budget built at 5 shoot days per episode, single director/DP/producer across the season (10 episodes / 50 shoot days). | Baseline the condensation below works from. Macro pipeline's span stays (episodes − 1) × 2 + 4 weeks regardless, since that cadence is sized to editor/AE bandwidth, not shoot length. | 01_TOP SHEET; 03_ATL; 04_PRODUCTION |
| Verified | Season cost splits cleanly into a flat, episode-count-independent portion ($160,948) and a per-episode rate, re-derived line-by-line from each department tab's own day/week/rate columns. At the source budget's full 5 shoot days/episode that rate is $46,727.50 (reproduces $628,223 exactly at 10 episodes). | Base formula before the shoot-day condensation below: Season total = $160,948 + $46,727.50 × episodes. | 03_ATL through 09_CONTINGENCY, re-traced by line item |
| Inferred | Field block set to 1 travel day + 3 shoot days (4 field days/episode) per the latest instruction, replacing the source budget's 5 shoot days. Priced at 4 days: director, DP, audio mixer, assistant camera, DIT, release coordinator, PA/driver, on-set lunch, craft services — all explicitly priced per field day. Left unchanged: the producer's 7-day prep/shoot/wrap/approvals allocation (not purely shoot days), all post-production rates, and insurance/contingency. | Drops crew/meals cost per episode relative to the original 5-day basis, but less than a straight half would. Which lines count as "field-day-priced" required judgment, and the existing Travel/Logistics department's per-diem/hotel figures (already averaged across "select overnight episodes") were left as-is rather than re-derived for a travel day on every episode — flagged as a likely understatement. | Re-derived from 03_ATL & 04_PRODUCTION line items |
| Inferred | iPhone videography removed entirely; FX3 two-camera package is now standard for every episode rather than a reserve for "select episodes." | Removes the $5,323 season-wide iPhone line outright. Reinterprets the source budget's only FX3-specific figure — a $6,500 season-wide reserve sized for select episodes — as a per-episode rate, since FX3 now shoots every episode. This is a reinterpretation of an existing number, not a new rental-house quote; confirm actual per-episode FX3 cost with a vendor before locking budget. Net effect: flat season cost drops (both camera lines leave the flat bucket), per-episode rate rises (FX3 now recurs every episode). | Reinterpreted from 04_PRODUCTION (2010/2011) |
| Verified | Rights & clearances, E&O, and production insurance are already line items in the source budget's Insurance/Legal tab: production insurance ($12,000), E&O ($6,000), legal/clearance review ($4,000), release/clearance reserve ($4,000) — $26,000 season-wide. | Broken out explicitly under Budget by Episode (previously only shown as a single summed "Insurance/Legal" bar). Unaffected by episode count, field-day, or camera-package changes. | 07_INSURANCE |
| Verified | Lead editor 2.0 wks/episode (20 wks season); AE 1.5 wks/episode (15 wks season); colorist 1 day/ep; sound mix 1 day/ep. | Sets the per-episode 4-week cycle and the editor/AE overlap inside it. | 01_TOP SHEET; 05_POST; 10_PER_EPISODE |
| Verified | 14-stage ownership model from capture through archive, with named owners per stage. | Structures the Week-2 through Week-4 day-by-day breakdown directly. | Post-Production Responsibilities Sheet |
| Verified | FX3 two-camera (A-cam/B-cam) hybrid package, originally the visual & equipment proposal's festival/high-density option. | Camera-package section — now the only package, used on every episode per the latest instruction. | Visual & Equipment Proposal |
| Inferred | 2-week shoot cadence (new episode's field block starts 2 weeks after the prior one). | This is the pacing assumption that makes a single editor/AE team keep up with a single shooting crew without backlog or idle time — it is not stated explicitly in any source document. | Derived from day/week totals above |
| Unknown | Calendar start date for Episode 1's shoot. | All weeks/days in this document are relative (Week 1 = first shoot), not tied to a calendar date. | Not specified in any source document |
| Flagged | Season/per-episode dollar totals disagree across three tabs in the budget workbook by roughly $54,877 (8% of the stated season budget). | Used Season Rollup ÷ 10 for the department split; Top Sheet figure used as the season headline — see reconciliation box above. | 01_TOP SHEET vs. 02_SEASON_ROLLUP vs. detail tabs vs. 10_PER_EPISODE |
| Flagged | ASP_Spent_Budget_V4.pdf describes a different SPENT production format (10×12-min Atlanta studio interviews, in-kind studio, $481,740 season) than the field-vérité model this schedule paces (50 field shoot days, Texas regional, $683,100 season). They read as two separate production plans for the same show, not one reconciled budget. | This schedule uses the field-vérité figures throughout; the studio-interview budget (V4) is not merged in. Producer should confirm which format — or both, as parallel tracks — is active before locking dates. | ASP_Spent_Budget_V4.pdf vs. field production budget |
Gaps the budget workbook's own Assumptions tab flags, plus what this schedule surfaced.
| Item | Status | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Production schedule | Addressed | This document — budget workbook previously flagged it as "NOT INCLUDED, required for external credibility." |
| Episode outlines | Missing | Needed to assign specific locations/subjects/travel routing to each shoot block. Flagged by the budget's own Assumptions tab as required for grant applications. |
| Distribution LOI | Missing | Required for investor/platform submissions per the budget's Assumptions tab. |
| Insurance quotes | Missing | Production ($12,000) and E&O ($6,000) figures are planning allowances, not bindable quotes. |
| Budget reconciliation | Flagged | $54,877 gap between Top Sheet and summed department tabs needs producer sign-off before this schedule's dollar figures are used externally. |
| Calendar start date | Missing | This schedule is relative (Week 1 through the season's final week, 14 for a 6-episode season / 18 for 8); needs a confirmed Episode 1 shoot date to convert to real calendar dates. |
| Episode count decision | Open | Source budget was built at 10 episodes; this page offers 6- and 8-episode scaled scenarios, but which episode count is actually greenlit is still a producer decision. |