Scratch Track

What this is about

Someone from the team reads the narration into a phone, the editor lays it under the timeline, and the cut takes shape around its rhythm. That is the point and the risk at once: the scratch defines pacing, so a final voice with different tempo shifts every edit around it. Teams manage this by keeping scratch reads close to the intended pace, replacing them as early as possible, and warning clients audibly — a rough voice in a review otherwise draws notes about audio quality that nobody needs.

A term only helps when everyone on set means the same thing by it — so what follows is how it is used, not a dictionary definition.

What runs differently here

Where this differs from the general case:

• Read the scratch at the pace the final voice should hit
• Label reviews clearly: temp voice, not the final recording
• Swap scratch for final as early as the workflow allows

With TillyGen

Marking a version as scratch-voiced in TillyGen's review keeps client notes on the cut itself instead of on placeholder audio.

Change one constraint and the consequences travel through the whole plan: affected shots are flagged, the call sheet is regenerated, and nobody keeps working from yesterday's version.