eli5: what’s a rough cut in filmmaking?
In: Other
Typically you edit a movie at the end to produce the final cut that gets shown in cinemas. But this makes it hard for people to know how the movie is going to end up and work towards that goal. So it is very common to create one or more rough cuts of a movie while it is being made. This rough cut uses whatever have been made up to that point and is not made to be perfect in any way. There are usually missing computer graphics elements. Entire scenes may be missing and replaced with drawings from the story board. The sound is usually not mixed and may be missing music, effects, have background noise in it and the volume of different elements may be far out.
They might make a rough cut of a scene after they are done filming it. This way if they notice something does not work they can quickly reshoot it before dismantling any of the set and before they send the actors and other staff on to the next scene or on to other jobs. You may therefore see rough cuts being ready every evening or every morning for people to see. After principal shooting they can also make a rough cut of the entire movie. This will help put together the music, the folly artists, the CG team, etc. The rough cut acts as a partially filled canvas where they can make their piece fit to and then when they are all done their pieces will fit together nicely. This rough cut can also be shown to people to get their opinion of it. This may help uncover some of the story issues and confusing parts. It is much easier to change scenes around or even reshoot scenes at this stage rather then when the final movie is done.
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