A hard limit changes how you write. With thirty seconds you cannot open on a slow establishing shot, so the first take starts inside the situation. You cannot resolve two threads, so each episode carries one. And you cannot pad, so the last take is the hook or it is cut. Episodes written against the cap come out tighter than episodes trimmed down to it.
The studio keeps the arithmetic honest. Every take has a chosen length from four to fifteen seconds, the episode shows seconds used and seconds left, and a take that would overrun is refused before any credits move. When you cut, the backend measures the real footage and refuses anything past thirty seconds plus a sliver of container slack.
Most episodes are three takes: ten, ten and ten, or twelve, twelve and six. Two takes of fifteen seconds each work for a slower two-hander, where one long look does the work of a cut. An episode needs at least two finished takes before it can be cut, so a single long take is not an episode here; the rhythm of the format comes from the edit between takes.
Takes are rendered one at a time with the cast and set you choose, and each one can be reshot without touching the others. When all the takes you want are finished, the cut brings each one to a shared portrait frame, places them in board order and writes a single vertical file with sound.
Takes are priced per second: standard quality is 3 credits a second at 480p and 6 at 720p, high quality is 6, 12 and 30 credits a second at 480p, 720p and 1080p. A three-take standard episode at 480p is 90 credits of takes plus 2 for the cut. The price for the take you are about to shoot is always printed above the button, and the backend rejects a shoot if the price it computes differs from the one you saw.
