How a Shooting Day Gets Its Date and Number
When a shooting day is created, its calendar date and its “Day N” number are not the same concept. The date answers which day on the calendar the record represents, while the number is the production-day label attached to that shooting day; they come from different defaults and appear in different shapes in handoff files, so they should be checked separately.
A shooting-day date is a calendar day, while its number is an editable production-day label; “Day N” should not be read as a direct count of how many days have actually been shot.
A new day starts with four defaults
When a shooting day is created, its number defaults to one past the larger of the highest number still in the production and the highest number already issued — the group filtered on screen does not change it; its date uses today when the list is empty, otherwise it uses the day after the largest date already in that list. When creation starts from “All,” the group defaults to the first group in the preset list, while creation from a specific group view carries that group name; camera and other information is left for the later form.
The easiest confusion is the source of the default date. The project also has a production-start date, but that value does not participate in calculating the next shooting-day date, so the default is not “production start plus one day”; if the existing schedule is offset from the production-start date, the next default still follows the largest date in the current list.
The date represents a calendar day only
A shooting-day date represents a local calendar day rather than a specific time within it. The shooting-day date should not be used to express the exact call time, wrap time, or another time of day.
The number is a separate axis. The interface wheel offers a one-year window around the current number, which slides with it rather than stopping at 365, and the list is ordered by that number; deleting one shooting day does not renumber the remaining days, and two shooting days in the same group are not blocked merely because they carry the same number. The number is therefore a visible label to verify, not evidence of a continuous count of production days.
The same number is written differently in three handoff formats
The number reaches the PDF and the CSV, but the two write it in different shapes. The PDF header shows a localized “Day N” expression; the CSV keeps a separate Shoot Day column with the bare number, and a take attached to no shooting day leaves that cell empty. The ALE has no day-number column at all — it carries the Shoot date stamp in the 2026-10-08 shape, so aligning by number means going back to the PDF or the CSV. Export filenames and subfolder names also carry the number; in a single-day set that segment is zero-padded (for example Day03) and sits after the project name and before the date.
For a cross-language check, do not try to match the Chinese page text for “第 3 天” character-for-character against any handoff file: the PDF is localized, the CSV is a bare number, and the ALE simply has no such column. Match the underlying number instead, then use the shooting day’s date stamp to confirm that both refer to the same day; different textual presentations do not by themselves mean the number changed.
Before handoff, the receiver should verify a shooting day’s date and number separately: the PDF and CSV each give the number in their own shape, the ALE gives only the date stamp, and whether all three point at the same day is yours to confirm.
Do not extend the number rule to group names
The shooting-day number and calendar-date rules answer only what label the day carries and which calendar day it represents. The behavior that rewrites existing shooting days when a group name is renamed is a separate rule, and this article does not turn it into a general claim that changing any label rewrites references. For the number itself, the relevant observable facts are that it is editable, controls list order, is not renumbered after deletion, and is carried into handoff output.
For the meaning of scene, shot, and take numbers outside this shooting-day label, Scene, Shot, and Take Numbers Explained separates those identities. Before handoff, Why the Same Takes Do Not Line Up Row-for-Row Across Handoff Files can be used to understand the differences in row order and column coverage without mistaking those row differences for changes to the shooting-day number.
FAQ
Where does the default date come from when a shooting day is created?
If the list is empty, the default is today; otherwise it is the day after the largest shooting-day date already in the current list, and the project production-start date does not participate in that calculation.
Does the “Day N” number always stay continuous?
The default is one past the larger of the highest number still present and the highest number already issued — the filtered group does not change it — and the number can later be edited; deletion does not renumber the remaining days, and duplicate numbers can exist in one group.
Can the shooting-day date represent an exact call time?
No; it represents which day it is on the local calendar, not a specific time for call or wrap.
Is “Day N” written the same way in PDF, ALE, and CSV?
No; PDF uses localized text and the CSV carries the bare number, while the ALE has no day-number column at all — only the Shoot date stamp — so the receiver should compare the number together with the date.
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