Editorial Turnover for VFX Plate Pulls
Plate-pull methods vary, but the production must use one documented workflow. The VFX producer and supervisor set the image pipeline, resolution, format, naming, and delivery rules for every artist and vendor.
The Bid Package
The bid package gives a vendor enough information to quote the work. Include plates or representative frames whenever possible so the bid reflects the material rather than a description. The VFX production team owns the package. On a small show, that may be the supervisor or editor.
A complete bid package, covering each shot or group of shots, includes:
- Storyboards or previz that show the intended staging and action.
- Reference photography: on-set stills, cleanplates, texture and lighting reference, and any witness-camera or survey material captured during production.
- Visual examples: temp composites (slap comps), frame grabs from other films, or concept art that communicate the target look.
- The relevant cut or edit, so the vendor can see each shot in the context of the scene and understand its timing and its neighbors.
- The plate or plates the shot will be built from, or at minimum representative frames at the working resolution.
- A detailed written description of the desired effect for every shot: what was shot practically, what needs to be created or removed, how long it runs, and what the shot has to accomplish in the story.
A precise package produces comparable bids and exposes scope before work begins. Ambiguity becomes contingency, underbidding, or change orders.
Timeline Preparation
In order to facilitate an accurate plate pull, edit lists must be derived from simplified timelines. Like a normal DI turnover, lists should not contain any nested sequences. Image effects, resizes, and repositions should all be removed.
Typically pull lists do not include handles. Rather the handles are specified to the vendor performing the pulls and added at that time. The pull lists should reflect the frames in the edit, not the handle frames.
Timewarps should be removed and the clips extended or shortened to precisely match the frames necessary to produce the timewarp.
It is common that separate pull orders are made for each visual effects sequence in a film as those sequences are soft-locked. This often happens out of narrative chronological order, and in smaller subdivisions than reels.
Unique VFX shot names are given to each clip, often designated by a timeline marker or other agreed-upon clip list to communicate that information to the operator performing the pulls.
Visual Effects Shot Naming
Name shots by sequence rather than scene when scenes may be reordered or intercut. Give every shot a sequence prefix and let VFX production define the logical divisions.
Shot numbering is relative to a specific sequence. Shots are often started at 0010 and increment in tens (0020, 0030…) in sequence order. This is done so that if a new shot (or multiple shots) is inserted in between pre-existing VFX shots, there are available numbers to assign to the new shot without breaking the sequence numbering logic.
For specialized effects that do not describe a scene, such as mobile phone message overlays or other forced narrative titles, it may be more convenient to label those as a single sequence name throughout the entire show. That way all of those similar graphics are logically named and grouped together, regardless of their underlying plate or scene content. This is valid whether the graphics are supplied prematted with an alpha channel or pre-composited into the scene.
Choose one naming convention before the first turnover and enforce it across vendors. Consistent names support reliable tracking, automation, and interchange.
File Naming Conventions
Use portable, case-consistent names. Replace spaces with underscores (_), and separate the base
name, frame number, and extension with periods (.). Avoid parentheses and special characters.
VFX producers will provide vendors with documentation prescribing file naming conventions for their project. A common naming convention, used with subtle variations between projects and producers:
Example: ABC0130_v002.0012.dpx, ABC0150_bg1.0123.dpx
| Token | Meaning |
|---|---|
<SEQ> |
The sequence prefix is a 3-letter abbreviation of the sequence name. |
<SHOT> |
The shot number is a 4-digit zero-padded enumerator. Incremented in multiples of 10. |
<CLASS> |
Descriptor used to denote specific plate classifications. |
v<VER#3> |
The version number is a 3-digit padded enumerator preceded by a lowercase v. Shows running a per-vendor numbering policy use four digits instead, so the leading digit identifies the vendor: see Versioning below. |
<OPTIONAL> |
Additional descriptor. |
<EYE> |
Stereo 3D eye flag written as a full lowercase word. |
#4 |
Frame number is a 4-digit zero-padded enumerator. Preceded and followed by dots (.) as divisors, not underscores (_). |
ext |
The file extension. |
Plate classifications:
| Class | Meaning |
|---|---|
bg# |
Background plate |
fg# |
Foreground plate |
comp |
Composite (render) |
Optional descriptors:
| Descriptor | Meaning |
|---|---|
matte# |
Matte (i.e. _matte1, _matte2, _matte123, _matte456) |
Stereo 3D eye flags: left, right.
Example plate pull:
Example comp:
Frame Numbering and Handles
Handle frames (padding) exist so that if there is any last-minute need to roll an edit by a frame or two, the picture editor has that flexibility. Plate handles and comp handles are separate decisions, and they are not the same number. Pull the plate generously: eight frames each end is a common figure, and the cost of carrying them is disk, not labour. How many of those frames the vendor is asked to comp is the expensive question: over an entire feature, comping handle frames nobody uses adds up, so four each end is a common delivery. Ultimately the comp handle count is subject to production budget and schedule.
A common example of how visual effects plates might be pulled and numbered:
It is often mandated that the visual effects artists and vendors return a completed shot with a slate frame containing information about the shot, revisions made, the company name, artist's initials, and a framing chart. In this case, the slate frame is prepended to the file sequence without offsetting the frame numbering.
It is common to start the first frame of comp handle or the first main frame at 1001 and work backwards to the slate frame. This allows for a scenario in which the shot has been started but frames are added to the head during editorial and VFX must add new frames to their work. Starting at 1001 rather than 0001 allows for extension of head frames while preserving file numbering of previously existing frames. For example: even after a change in shot duration, frame 1034 will still be the same frame as in the initial pull.
Alternatively, it may be desired that the first main frame (first frame of the edit) is 1001 with handles working backwards.
In some situations, you may intentionally provide more handle frames in the plate than are required in the final comp. Handles are given at both ends: the point of a tail handle is that the cut can be rolled later, so a comp delivered flush to the last edit frame is unusable for the very purpose handles exist to serve.
Here the shot's main action runs 1001–1015. The plate carries eight frames of handle at each end, and the comp is delivered with four:
head handles main action tail handles
Plate 8+8: 0993 … 1000 1001 … 1015 1016 … 1023
Comp 4+4: 0997 … 1000 1001 … 1015 1016 … 1019
Versioning
A costly mistake in visual effects shot management is losing track of versions or not having version numbers at all. Without version numbers, there is no reliable way to confirm that the intended shots are in the conform.1 Version numbering practices are generally ubiquitous among artists and vendors, but occasionally there is confusion.
Any revision to a shot, even a simple correction in render settings, or a redelivery because of a corrupt frame, needs to have a new version number. Otherwise it is confusing for the production editorial team and conform editor to know which version should be cut in if they have received multiple deliveries of shots with the same version number.
Sometimes when working with multiple VFX vendors, a producer will institute a version numbering policy in which each vendor starts their version numbers differently. That way anyone involved can tell which vendor did the work just by looking at the file name.
For example Vendor A may start their version numbers at 1001, while Vendor B starts at 2001.
Format Specification
Many cameras now acquire images in resolutions greater than 4K. What you finish at is increasingly decided by the distribution path rather than the budget. Theatrical DI at 2K remains spec-compliant and still happens, and archival masters are preserved at camera native resolution for future releases. But any project with a streaming distributor is now working to a UHD floor. Netflix requires VFX pulls and deliveries at a minimum active image area of UHD, and 20th Century Fox requires pulls at native camera resolution.
Production will need to decide on an imaging pipeline that suits their budgetary goals as well as the delivery requirements of their distributor(s). This decision has an impact on how visual effects plates will be pulled, as well as how visual effects artists and vendors will deliver shots back to production and the digital intermediate.
Data transfer time (a billable resource) is also a factor in what specifications your plates and shots fall into.
It is quite common for the camera acquisition format, visual effects plate format, and vendor delivery format to all differ.
For example: you may shoot 8K on a RED V-RAPTOR, pull plates at 6K or native, and receive UHD final VFX back from your artists and vendors. This provides the vendors with a high-resolution plate with enough detail for tracking and reframing, even though the ultimate deliverable is smaller. Note that the older pattern of pulling at 4K and delivering 2K comps is no longer a safe default for a streaming title.
Clearly defining these three critical formats is essential:
- Acquisition format
- VFX plate pull format
- VFX vendor delivery format
Each of these formats is defined by:
- Raster dimensions (resolution)
- Scaling methods used to achieve that raster from the source media (scaled or cropped)
- File type (DPX, EXR, ProRes)
- Bit depth
Bit depth is not a free choice from a menu: the pipeline decides it. In the decade since this handbook's first edition the industry has moved decisively toward 16-bit EXR or DPX and away from 10-bit, and that shift now reaches all the way back into scanning. Studio and streamer specifications have followed: 10-bit DPX is commonly barred outright for VFX-to-DI exchange, or permitted only where the original capture was itself 10-bit log, and log-encoded EXRs are routinely rejected.
The practical rule is that bit depth follows the encoding, not preference. Scene-linear material belongs in half-float EXR. Log material in 16-bit integer DPX or EXR. Reaching for 10-bit because a file is smaller is a false economy once anything is regraded, and it is the kind of decision that is expensive to reverse after a vendor has delivered a hundred shots. - Color space and transfer function (encoding)
Before any plate pulls or visual effects work begins, make sure these formats and requirements are clearly defined to all parties involved.
Support Files
In addition to the plates themselves, it is common to supply the Show LUT and ASC CDL values
in sidecar XMLs (.cc) and/or LUTs, so they are easily accessible by whichever artists are
delivered the plate(s). Alternatively, a Color Correction Collection XML (.ccc) "codebook" can be
generated containing a lookup of all VFX shots and their corresponding CDL values. This is rarely
distributed to individual artists, as it is more convenient to supply them with only the
information they need for their specific shots (e.g. a .cc file per shot).
Lens distortion grids and camera metadata
Two things belong in the turnover that are easy to forget and impossible to recreate later.
Lens distortion grids. A photographed grid or checkerboard chart, shot on each lens at the apertures and focus distances actually used, lets the matchmove and compositing teams solve the lens's distortion rather than guess it. Without it, a 3D track fights the plate and the artist ends up hand-matching a distortion profile that a five-minute test would have given them exactly.
The time to shoot these is camera prep, where the lenses are already on the bench and nobody is waiting on them. On set, mid-shoot, they are expensive and frequently skipped. That matters most in the cases where the grids matter most: vintage glass, uncommon or rehoused lenses, anything with custom tuning, and any lens introduced partway through a shoot. A current cinema prime may already be in a vendor's database. A detuned vintage lens with a personality is exactly the one nobody can look up. If specialty lenses join the package after prep, grid them when they arrive rather than assuming the original session covered it.
Camera and lens metadata. Sensor mode and active area, lens make, focal length, T-stop, focus distance, filtration, camera height and tilt, and any in-camera reframing. Matchmove uses these to seed a solve rather than derive everything from the image. Most of this is recoverable from clip metadata if the pipeline preserved it, but transcodes routinely strip it, and once the unit has wrapped, nothing is going to reconstruct what filter was on the lens.
Both belong in the bid package as well as the turnover: a vendor bidding a heavy matchmove sequence prices the risk differently when they know grids exist.
Frames are commonly contained in a resolution subdirectory. This is common practice even when only a single plate format is used and is complementary to traditional digital intermediate workflows. It is particularly useful in situations where proxy resolutions are generated to accelerate compositing. Various resolutions can be contained within a single shot directory.
Example plate pull directory structure:
./support_files/kxn_RedLogFilm_to_Rec709_FF.cube
./kxn0010_bg1/3072x1280/kxn0010_bg1.1001-1073.dpx
./kxn0010_bg1/support_files/kxn0010_bg1.cc
./kxn0010_bg1/support_files/kxn0010_bg1.cube
Turnovers and Count Sheets
The plate pull produces the media. The turnover is how that media, and the information that goes with it, reaches the vendor. Each turnover packages the pulled plates, a locked reference video of the cut, the relevant reference and support files, and a count sheet that tells the vendor exactly what they are receiving.
The count sheet is the master list of every shot in the turnover. It tells the vendor about every shot being requested, what materials they will need, where to find them, and exactly what each shot involves. Per shot it typically carries:2
- Shot code (see Visual Effects Shot Naming above), and the sequence, scene, and reel it belongs to.
- Master (record) timecode, where the shot sits in the cut, and the source timecode of the plate, plus the frame range, duration, and the number of handle frames on head and tail.
- The plate ID or IDs that make up the shot and where to find them (path or drive), and a thumbnail so the shot is identifiable at a glance.
- A description of the shot and, more usefully, a description of the effect required: broken out per element when a shot combines several.
- Technical notes that change the scope of the work: retimes / speed changes, resizes and repositions, frame extensions, split-screens, and any elements arriving from another vendor.
- The assigned vendor, the current version, and the shot's status (bid, awarded, in progress, in review, final).
The count sheet travels with the plates so the vendor can reconcile what they were told against what actually landed on their drive, and it is the production's own record of what went out, to whom, and when. Turnovers are usually built per vendor, containing only the shots assigned to that vendor along with their plates, cleanplates, reference, and the Show LUT and CDL sidecars described under Support Files. Keeping each vendor's turnover self-contained avoids sending an artist material for shots they are not working on and keeps the delivery small enough to transmit efficiently.
In practice the count sheet is rarely a separate document at all: it is a view of the same tracking sheet the production is already using to manage the show, filtered down to the shots in that turnover.
Coordination and Tracking
None of this holds together without someone whose job is to keep it organized. On a large show that is the VFX coordinator, working under the VFX producer. On an independent production the role usually collapses into the VFX producer, the VFX editor, or whoever is acting as supervisor. Whatever the title, someone has to own the list of shots, the versions in play, the outstanding notes, and the deadlines, and keep all of it current as work comes and goes.
Full production-tracking platforms such as Autodesk Flow Production Tracking (formerly Shotgun, then ShotGrid) and ftrack are built for exactly this and do it well, with shot databases, review tools, and pipeline APIs. They are also heavy and complex, and the overhead of running one rarely pays off on a show with a few dozen shots and a handful of artists. Most independent productions run the whole thing on a Google Sheet instead: one row per shot, columns for the information that would otherwise live on the count sheet, and a status column that everyone reads from. It is low-tech, but it is shared, it is current, and it is the single source of truth the count sheets and turnovers are drawn from. Production tracking is covered in more depth in Visual Effects Production Management.
Organization is also leverage. Independent productions routinely ask vendors and individual artists for discounted or gifted work, and the ones who get it are the ones who make the work easy to say yes to. Every hour a vendor spends deciphering a disorganized turnover, chasing a missing plate, or reconciling contradictory notes is unpaid overhead, and it is exactly the menial work a favor is not meant to cover. A production that hands over clean, complete, well-labeled material and keeps its notes and versions straight is asking a vendor to donate their craft, not their patience, and is far more likely to get the discount.
The count sheet is a good example. It should be detailed but easy to read, well organized, and lead with the critical information. If it lists the source in and out timecodes of a plate but omits the frame count, every bidder has to do the arithmetic themselves to work out how many frames they are being asked to price. It is a small inconvenience, but a small inconvenience repeated across every shot and every vendor is exactly the kind of friction to remove when you are asking someone to work on your film for less than it is worth.
The Creative Review Cycle
While a shot is being built, the filmmakers review it in progress. These early and in-progress creative reviews are not about technical quality control. They are about content, design, and whether the shot is working. The vendor renders a QuickTime with the Show LUT, or display transform, baked in so the director, VFX supervisor, and editor see the shot in its intended look rather than as a flat log image. The editor can cut that QuickTime into the timeline and review it in the context of the surrounding scene.
Because the artists are usually remote, these reviews happen over the internet. Frame.io (now an Adobe product) and cineSync are the common platforms: the vendor uploads a version, the reviewers play it back and leave frame-accurate notes, and the vendor turns those notes into the next version. That loop repeats until the shot is approved.
The loop is where things fall apart without discipline. Notes get left in an email, a text message, and a review platform all at once. Two people refer to the same shot by two different names. A vendor delivers a new version against notes that have already been superseded. Every one of these is an organizational failure rather than a creative one, and every one of them costs a revision. The defenses are simple and non-negotiable: clear version numbers on every delivery (see Versioning above), one source of truth for notes so nobody is working from a stale list, and unambiguous shot naming so there is never a question of which shot is being discussed. This is what the coordinator and the tracking sheet exist to enforce.
Final Turnover into the DI
Creative approval is not the finish line. When a shot is creatively approved in review, the vendor turns it over in the agreed final format, typically EXR, at the delivery resolution, color space, and handle length settled on at the start of the show (see Format Specification above). That final render is conformed and cut into the DI against the offline reference, graded by the colorist in the context of the finished sequence, and put through quality control on the DI's calibrated pipeline.
That last step matters because a shot can look finished in a review platform and still fail in the DI. Graded up on a theater screen or a reference monitor, matte lines, grain mismatches, and black-point errors that were invisible in a compressed QuickTime become obvious. These are the issues covered under Visual Effects Quality Control Practices. A shot is only truly final once it has been conformed, graded, and QC'd in the DI and confirmed to work in the finished picture. Until then it is a creatively approved shot that has not yet proven itself in context.
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Some nameless vendors have been guilty of delivering entire feature films without version numbers, leaving the conform editors to rely solely on the delivery date to know whether they are using the most up to date shot. ↩
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Expected count-sheet (or "turnover sheet" / "lineup sheet") content follows common feature practice: see, for example, Evan Schiff, Feature Turnover Guide: VFX and Park Road Post's Guide to VFX Handovers. ↩