Review feedback sheet template

What this is about

Feedback becomes expensive at the point where it is collected, not at the point where it is given. Comments arriving as mail replies, voice messages and a marked-up PDF have to be read, matched to timecodes and checked against each other by someone — and if that someone is the editor, the production is paying suite time for admin. A feedback sheet moves the work to where it belongs: everyone writes into the same structure, one person consolidates, contradictions are decided by a named approver, and the round closes with an agreed list rather than with the loudest voice.

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:

• One row per comment with timecode, the person who raised it, the observation and the change being asked for, kept in separate columns
• A priority level with a meaning attached: blocking, wanted, optional — where blocking means the version cannot be approved as it stands
• A decision column owned by the approver, in which contradictory comments are resolved before the list leaves the client side
• A scope flag marking comments that go beyond what was agreed, so they leave the sheet and become a change request instead
• The version identifier and the round number at the top, plus the date feedback is due back, matching the post schedule

Step by step

This order gets you there fastest:

1. Send the version and the empty sheet together, and state in the message that comments outside the sheet will not be tracked.
2. Name the people entitled to comment in this round and the one person who owns the final decision on their behalf.
3. Ask for timecodes and observations rather than solutions — what does not work here is more useful than a proposed cut.
4. Consolidate on the client side: merge duplicates, and place directly conflicting rows next to each other for the approver to settle.
5. Flag every comment that expands the agreed scope, remove it from the round and open a change request for it separately.
6. Return the sheet as one file by the deadline, then work it top to bottom and fill the status column as you go.
7. Close the round by sending the completed sheet back with the new version, so the next round starts from a settled state.

Common pitfalls

What most often goes wrong in practice:

• Feedback arriving through four channels, where the mail thread and the voice message contradict the sheet and nobody knows which one counts
• No named approver, so the editor decides between two departments and is later blamed by whichever one lost
• Comments phrased as solutions, which hide the actual problem and produce a change that fixes nothing
• New requests smuggled into a feedback round instead of being priced as a change, until the last round is bigger than the first

With TillyGen

Because TillyGen holds the agreed deliverables from the briefing, a comment that asks for something outside them is visible as scope rather than as taste — which is exactly the distinction that keeps review rounds finite.

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.