Hold every release, licence and cut of a documentary against the budget that pays for it.

A documentary is built from material that someone else owns or appears in. Interview subjects sign releases, archives license clips, composers license tracks, and a commissioner expects all of it listed at delivery. Funding often comes in tranches, each tied to a stage of the film. Money follows milestones.

Most production companies track this across a budget spreadsheet, a shared drive and a folder of scanned forms. The film is finished well before anyone can prove that every frame in it is cleared. That proof is the slow part.

The producer writes the treatment, applies to funders and broadcasters, and builds the budget. The director plans shoot days with a fixer and a field crew, and the production manager books kit, travel and local helpers. Every interviewee signs a release before the camera rolls, and every location visit needs a permit or a note of permission.

After each shoot day the data wrangler copies the cards, checks the copies and logs the clips. A transcriber turns interviews into text so the editor and the story producer can search them. The editor cuts an assembly, then a rough cut, then a fine cut, and each version goes to the director, the executive producer and the commissioner for notes. Notes come back in all shapes.

An archive researcher requests clips from libraries and private collections, asks for a quote on each one, and keeps the replies in a mailbox until the sequence is ready. Music rights, narration recordings, translations and subtitles follow, each with its own supplier, its own deadline and its own invoice to approve. At the end the production accountant reports spend to the funder, and the delivery list for the broadcaster is checked line by line. Gaps cost days.