By Ivan Victor
For many film and television editors, Avid’s ScriptSync is one of those indispensable tools they can’t imagine working without. For others, it remains something of a mystery: powerful, but intimidating enough that they’ve never fully explored what it can do.
Veteran television picture editor Ivan Victor, ACE (“Parks and Recreation,” “Stick”), wanted to get answers to the questions many editors have been reluctant to ask: What exactly does ScriptSync do? How does it fit into a real editorial workflow? And why do so many editors consider it an essential part of cutting dialogue-driven scenes?
The ‘Script’ part of the workflow has been around a lot longer than ScriptSync. It originally required editors to add script marks manually, which is frequently how it is still done on scripted productions to ensure accuracy. In 2023, Avid’s Media Composer updated the backend engine behind ScriptSync to take advantage of AI for transcription versus the original phonetic analysis that was previously being used. Since then, there have been ongoing enhancements to this workflow to help editors take better advantage of the AI transcription.
But picture editor Lauren Connelly, ACE (“Beef”), has been cutting with Avid’s ScriptSync for nearly 20 years, ever since her days as an apprentice editor — and long enough that some of her peers have given her the nickname “queen” of ScriptSync. On shows like “Mo” and “Gaslit,” her assistant editor, Andrew “Andy” Elliott, helps prep the scripts, and the duo has used the software tool to help speed up editorial decisions, allowing more time for creativity.
Ivan Victor.
Victor sat down with Connelly and Elliott to find out everything fellow editors need to know about how the tool works best on a show — from the first scene of dailies to the moment a director or showrunner sits down beside them.
CineMontage: When you get dailies, what does setting up ScriptSync involve?
Elliott: During prep, I’ll build ScriptSync settings in Media Composer where I change and enlarge the font and widen the margins. I find it makes the script easier to skim and keeps things tidier as the script gets marked. By the end, the ScriptSync file will look like the script supervisor’s lined pages. I’ll also set up a line of communication with the script coordinator to ensure we always receive the latest version of the script in the required format for import into ScriptSync. Once we start getting dailies, I’ll do the normal dailies prep and script each scene separately.
Andy Elliott.
CineMontage: Why scene by scene rather than a single document?
Elliott: It’s a personal preference. I find working scene by scene keeps things better organized and easier to read, and that’s how Lauren likes it done. Some editors prefer to have fewer script files, so for them I’d script by act or reel. Scripts also work like Avid bins: if one of us has a script open, the other can’t make any changes to it.
CineMontage: So how does ScriptSync know which line in the script corresponds to that moment in the clip?
Elliott: Each script or action mark matches back to the spot in the clip where the script marker was placed.
CineMontage: There are AI features that will mark it for you. Do you let the AI take a pass and then clean it up, or is it quicker to do it manually the whole way through?
Elliott: I find it quicker to do it manually, though I’ve spoken with other assistant editors who prefer to use ScriptSync AI first, then check everything. I usually script at 1.5x to 2x playback speed, which I find much quicker than cleaning up any marks or dialog that ScriptSync AI might have missed or misplaced. I can catch any improvised lines and include nonverbal reactions or moments ScriptSync AI might ignore. I can also add marks to important scripted actions, especially in scenes that aren’t dialogue-heavy. AI tools have improved over the last few years, but the final result is never as precise as I would like. I suppose it all depends on how the editor wants to use ScriptSync — some want only scripted dialogue marked; others want more information.
CineMontage: Lauren, describe how you use ScriptSync on a first pass.
Connelly: I know some assistant editors out there won’t like this answer, but I like to have ScriptSync done before I watch dailies. That is not always possible, but Andy’s so good that 99% of the time he makes it happen. And if he needs more time, I will start my day a bit later. It’s worth it for my process.
Lauren Connelly.
I watch all the dailies in shooting order using a bin, and while I watch, I add regular locators to the clips for reactions I want to save, and I’ll take written notes in my line script. After watching each take, I’ll stop to look at the Avid ScriptSync file to see how it’s organized. Was all of the improv transcribed individually? Should it be grouped? Is that monologue broken up enough? Do I want to reorder any lines or change any colors? Are there any other actions I want marked?
I think it’s really important for me to dive into ScriptSync in detail early on, because it’s the tool I use most throughout the process. I need to understand exactly how it’s organized and make sure it makes sense to my brain. Because of this, I know I can rely on it when someone is in the room with me.
When I actually start cutting, I use the Avid script to move around footage quickly. It’s really helpful to re-compare performances and locate specific improvs. I pretty much go through all the footage a complete second time using the script.
CineMontage: How do you handle alts and improv?
Connelly: Every scene is different. I have specific strategies, but there’s no hard-and-fast rule for doing it. You really have to think about how best to organize the Avid script based on the structure of the individual scene and the specific jokes. My first strategy is color coding: I use blue. I’ve actually found that many people use blue! I color the script marks or areas that have improv so they stand out as not part of the original dialogue. Another strategy I like is grouping ALT lines by character. So if you have one character responding to a line differently across multiple takes and in multiple ways, I’ll put all those options under a single character heading so you can see all the variations in one spot. Especially for end-of-scene buttons, I’ll group all the lines by character rather than transcribing each take in spoken order. I often mix and match these ending improvs to create a whole new joke, so I need to find all those lines quickly. It’s hard to find specific lines if you have to read each take one by one in the order they were transcribed.
CineMontage: And when things really go off the rails?
Connelly: Then I’ll group things by general subject matter. There was a scene when Andy and I were working on “Gaslit” where the characters went off on wild tangents about different foods, but they always talked about the same types of food. So what we ended up doing was every time they talked about ice cream, here’s a mark; every time they talked about spaghetti, here’s a mark. I’ll also create visual section breaks by using dashes to make lines across the page. If you have tons and tons of improv everywhere, it’s easy to get lost and not know where to find things. These visual section breaks keep me from getting lost in the script itself. This is also why I like to have the script early on, so that I’m very familiar with how it’s organized.
CineMontage: Is there a way to notate flubs or the director’s preferred take?
Connelly: So not only do I use blue for improv, but I’ll use other colors to notate those types of things, such as red for flubs. And then when I’m with a showrunner and we go through the takes, I’ll color their selects yellow. It’s quicker than writing down all the preferred take numbers, and it’s easy to find their selects again when revisiting a scene. You can use colors to indicate when it’s the AD or script supervisor reading an off-camera line, or to differentiate speed variations.
CineMontage: Can you search the script for a specific word?
Connelly: Yes! You can use the Find tool to search the scripts for specific words, which is incredibly helpful when needing to replace audio in a scene. And as much as I’d like to think I will remember where to find every single improv that was ever done, I’m just not going to months later. So the script lets you quickly go back, read through everything, and find whatever you are looking for.
It’s also invaluable when cutting in foreign languages. I’ve never actually gotten dailies with subtitles. When you have scenes that really stick to the original dialogue, you can script them by just following the order of who is talking, without needing someone who speaks the language. When there was a lot of improv in a foreign language, like on “Mo,” we hired an additional assistant editor, Zaineb Abdul-Nabi, who speaks Arabic. Andy would script all the English, color-code the sections in Arabic, and then hand the script off to her. The process worked perfectly.
CineMontage: For an assistant editor new to ScriptSync, what advice do you have?
Elliott: ScriptSync isn’t a hard tool to use, though it can be very tedious and frustrating at first. The end benefits make it worth the effort. With practice, it gets easier, and you’ll get much quicker.
CineMontage: Fundamentally, there is no shortcut to ingesting the material ourselves. Whether it’s markers, ScriptSync, pen and paper, or whatever we use creatively, that’s our conduit into our creative process.
Connelly: Exactly. It does take time, but all of the tools we use — making select reels, sub-clipping, handwritten notes, locators — take a lot of time. We need to be very familiar with our footage, so for me, the time spent doing ScriptSync is time very well spent. And the time that ScriptSync saves later on in the process is remarkable. My philosophy on editing as a whole is that the editor’s cut is like building a house: you need a very strong foundation, which requires us to spend time preparing to build!
Ivan Victor is a member of MPEG’s Publications Committee.
