Edit notes template

What this is about

Edit notes are the working conversation between director and editor while a cut is still being formed. They are internal by nature: written in craft language, allowed to contradict yesterday, and never sent to a client as they stand. Their quality is measured by one thing only — whether the editor can sit down alone and act on every line without a phone call. That requires a timecode, a description of the effect that is missing rather than the technique to apply, and a version reference, because a note against last week's cut points at the wrong frame today.

A template is the starting point, not the goal: once it has been filled in by hand twice, it is worth asking whether the document should come out of the plan instead.

What runs differently here

Where this differs from the general case:

• A timecode per note in the format of the reviewed version, with a range rather than a point whenever the note is about a passage
• The intended effect described in one sentence — what the scene should do here — instead of the cut instruction the note author already imagined
• A type marker separating error, structure and taste: a missing frame, a scene order question and a colour preference need different conversations
• The version the note refers to, named exactly as the file was, so nobody applies week-three notes to the week-four cut
• A status column the editor fills in — done, differently solved, discussed and dropped — which turns the list into a record instead of a repeated argument

Step by step

This order gets you there fastest:

1. Watch the cut once without stopping and without writing, so the first impression is about the film and not about frame 00:04:12.
2. Watch it a second time and write, giving every note a timecode from the version you are actually looking at.
3. Phrase each note as the effect that is missing, then stop — the editor knows twelve ways to produce it and you know one.
4. Mark the type of each note so the editor can batch: errors first, structure in one pass, taste when there is calm.
5. Delete your own duplicates and contradictions before sending; a list that argues with itself pushes the decision onto the editor.
6. Send it against one named version and never verbally amend it afterwards, because the spoken addition is the note that gets lost.
7. Review the status column together in the next session rather than re-reading the whole list from the top.

Common pitfalls

What most often goes wrong in practice:

• Notes without timecodes, which force the editor to search for the moment before being able to think about it
• Prescribing the cut instead of the effect, which throws away the one craft judgement you hired an editor for
• Mixing notes on the picture with notes on the mix and the grade, months before either exists in a finished state

With TillyGen

TillyGen keeps every shot connected to the scene and the intention it was planned with, so a note in the edit leads back to the shot list entry it came from rather than to a guess about what was meant.

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.