Shoot day exceeding schedule — runs over in hours or pushes to next day. Impacts crew costs, location holds, lighting reset.
When the shooting day doesn't go according to plan and the last scene is still waiting in front of the camera while the sun is long gone — that's when you, as the DoP or 1st AD, are in a classic runover. This isn't just a delay, but a production emergency with a domino effect. A runover costs money immediately (overtime, extra work for the lighting crew), ties up your location beyond the planned time, and drains the crew's energy that you'll need tomorrow.
In practice, you distinguish between two scenarios: The mini-runover — you need an additional 30 to 90 minutes for the last shot, thus pushing into the night. Here, location availability and your catering budget decide if that's possible. The actual runover is when entire scenes aren't completed and are moved to the next shooting day. This means checking with production management if that day is even possible, replanning the following shooting days, and possibly checking actor availability. An actor does not have to accept the extra hours — especially with bigger names, it becomes a negotiation topic.
The most common causes: you've done more takes than planned (because the first version didn't work technically), a lighting change took longer than calculated, or the director decides they want an alternative version of a scene after all. As a DoP, you have to be realistic — if the twilight window is gone at 5:30 PM and you still need four shots, a runover is programmed.
The tricky part: runovers rarely arise from a single cause. The schedule is already running 20 minutes behind by morning, a minor technical defect occurs at noon, the actress needs an additional take for her safety — and suddenly at 8 PM you're still at a location where the caretaker finishes at 6 PM. That's why experienced ADs calculate a buffer into the daily schedule, and as a cinematographer, you keep scenes concise so that runovers don't become routine. Sometimes making a scene as simple as possible is a better decision than a runover the next day.