What is a Rough cut?

What is a rough cut?

In filmmaking, the rough cut is the second of three stages of offline editing.

1. Initial Assembly: The selected shots are moved from the order they are filmed in into the approximate order they will appear in the final cut.
2. Rough cut: More shot selection, approximate trimming. The sound is untreated, unfinished, and will require sound editing. Often dialogue and sound effects will be incomplete. Titles, graphics, special effects, and composites are usually represented only by crude placemarkers. Colours are untreated, unmatched, and generally unpleasant.
3. Final cut: The final sequence of images and sound are selected and put in order.

The rough cut is the first stage in which the film begins to resemble its final product. Rough cuts do not flow well and still undergo many changes before the release of the film.

The rough cut for our opening is due on Wednesday the 5th of Feb.