Reading eighths — 3/8, 2 3/8, and what the estimate is not

The page tells you the length. Not the shoot.

• A scene’s length is written in eighths of a page. SlateX displays it the way the script page is read: 3/8, 2 3/8.
• Under it, the app also shows a derived time estimate — the eighths converted at a fixed rate so you can answer “roughly how long” without doing arithmetic on your knees in the rain.
• Two things this estimate is not: it is not a measurement of what you actually shot; it does not change because a take ran long. It is script geometry, quoted consistently, so that page figures and time figures never drift apart between two people’s notes.
• What you shot is a different column and it comes from your own recording — that is where the real duration lives.

Keep the two columns apart. The distinction between “scripted eighths” and “what we got” is the sentence that saves the evening.

Full detail: How Script Eighths Work—and What They Do Not Tell You.