The edit stage, and what a producer needs to see
During the edit a producer needs three things without asking the editor: which version of the cut is current, how long the cut has been in the edit stage against its SLA, and which notes from the last review are still open. Tasked shows each of them on the project: the versions of a cut side by side with notes carried from the older one, the time in stage against the template default (120 hours for the Edit stage in the Commercial and Corporate templates), and every note that became a task with its owner and due date.
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Versions, not files named final
The edit produces versions, and the producer's first question is always which one is current. In Tasked a cut is an asset and each export is a version of it, numbered in order. The review works on a version, the client approves a version, and the decision is recorded against that version. There is no ambiguity about which file the director meant when she said 'approved'.
Because versions are ordered, the compare view can put two side by side: the rough cut the client saw last week and the cut that came back from the edit this morning. That view is what stops the conversation 'did you fix the thing at 0:48' from happening in email.
Notes on the frame, at the source frame rate
A note is only useful if it lands on the frame the reviewer meant. Tasked's review player reads the frame rate of the file as an exact ratio - 24000/1001 rather than 23.976 - and does every conversion between timecode and time as integer arithmetic on that ratio. Eight rates are supported: 23.976, 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 50, 59.94 and 60. Drop-frame timecode is the default for 29.97 and 59.94, because it is the default in the edit suites those files come from, and a file authored non-drop can say so.
The consequence for the producer is that a note at 00:59:58:12 on an hour of 23.976 material points at the frame the reviewer saw, not at a frame three frames later. A file at an unsupported rate is refused for frame math rather than approximated. Reviewers can also draw on stills and PDFs, which is how a storyboard or a title card gets a circle around the wrong logo.
Carrying notes from version two to version three
When the next version arrives, the notes on the old one do not disappear and they do not need to be retyped. Tasked carries a note by the moment it points at, in wall-clock time, not by the frame index it happened to hold. A note at 48 seconds on a 25 fps version lands at 48 seconds on a 23.976 version, which is a different frame number and the same moment.
A carried note is marked 'still relevant?' rather than assumed to be, because the cut may have changed under it; the reviewer decides. A note with no moment, a general remark or a pin on a still, is carried with no frame and stays relevant. A note that points past the end of a shorter new version is flagged instead of carried silently.
- Notes are carried by time, so a frame rate change between versions does not move them.
- Each carried note is a new note on the new version, with its own search entry.
- 'Carry all' carries only the notes that survive the new length.
Time in stage, and a risk you can explain
The Edit stage in the Commercial and Corporate templates defaults to 120 hours; Assembly in Documentary defaults to 168 and the Full film edit in the Wedding film template to 336. Whatever the number on a given project, Tasked records when the project entered the stage and shows the elapsed time against it. That interval is what the bottlenecks view aggregates into a median per stage across the last month of projects.
The project's risk score is built from reasons that add up to it: a stage past its SLA, an approval waiting, a due date close, rounds past the agreement. When the producer asks why a project is at risk, the answer is the list, not a colour someone chose. Nobody marks a project red by hand.
The rough cut review before the client sees anything
The Commercial and Documentary templates put a review stage between the edit and the client: Rough cut review, owned by the director and editor, with a 48-hour default in Commercial and 72 in Documentary. It is an internal stage. A cut that goes back to the edit from here costs the studio time; a cut that goes back from the client's approval stage costs a round.
The transition out of Rough cut review in the Commercial template requires the review's checklist to be complete, so a producer can put 'sound levels checked' and 'legal line present' on it and know the client will not be the one to notice.
What the producer gets without asking
The board view shows every cut by stage; the timeline shows the projects against their due dates; the table shows the fields side by side; each arrangement can be saved as a view. Search across tasks, projects, comments and files returns an answer as well as results, so 'what is waiting on the editor this week' is a question the product answers rather than a filter the producer builds.
A note in the review that needs work becomes a task with an owner and a due date in one step, and the task keeps the link to the note. The weekly owner report lists the projects at risk with their reasons, and an automation written as a sentence can notify the producer when a cut has sat in the edit for longer than its SLA.
Questions that keep coming up
- Can the editor upload a new version without the client seeing it?
- Yes. A version is visible to the client only through a review session the studio opens on it. Internal review stages happen before that.
- What happens to notes when the new version is a different length?
- Each note is carried by its moment in time. A note whose moment falls past the end of the new version is flagged rather than carried silently.
- Does Tasked replace the edit software?
- No. The edit happens in the editor's own software. Tasked holds the versions, the notes, the approval and the time in stage.
- How accurate is a note on a 29.97 file?
- Frame-accurate. 29.97 is handled as the exact ratio 30000/1001 with drop-frame timecode by default, so the note lands on the frame the reviewer saw.
- Is the 120-hour edit SLA fixed?
- No. 120 hours is the template default in Commercial and Corporate. Documentary's Assembly stage defaults to 168 hours. Any project can set its own value.