Picture Lock When Shots Can Still Regen
Define picture lock when a shot can still regenerate: a signed change-list, and which picture changes reopen grade and mix.
Picture lock used to mean the picture could not change, because changing it meant a recut that blew the mix and the grade. In a generated pipeline the picture can always change. A client asking for one more regen after the mix has started is not confused. They have correctly noticed that another take is cheap. Lock therefore has to be redefined as a finishing contract, not as a property of the pixels.
Lock is a finishing contract, not a render freeze
Traditional lock is a date and a cut. The editor signs the sequence. Sound and colour proceed against that sequence. A picture change after that date is not a note. It is a department reopening.
Generated video does not freeze just because you liked a take. Any shot can be sampled again. Same prompt, even the same seed, is not the same file. A seed picks starting noise. It does not pin an asset. Providers update weights. Settings drift. Seeds and reproducibility is blunt about the only durable copy: save the render. The seed is a recipe. The file is the dish.
So lock in this pipeline is: these shot_ids, these hashes, this timeline. A regen of a locked shot is a new shot. It is not a revision of the old one. It does not inherit the old shot's grade, the old shot's mix, or the old shot's approval.
Who signs:
- Editor: the cut is the cut.
- Producer: the lock date is the lock date.
- Named client approver: the picture on that cut is accepted.
One voice on the client side. Three Slack threads is not a lock. Scoping by decisions rather than deliverables is the structure this depends on. If "locked decision" has no named owner, you cannot tell a regen from a request.
The change-list, not another round of notes
A revision policy still belongs in the proposal. It caps creative rounds. Finishing needs a different artefact: a change-list.
Each row is one request after lock:
| Field | What it records |
|---|---|
| shot_id | The locked ID, not the new filename |
| request | One sentence, from the named approver |
| new sample? | Yes if anything is regenerated or swapped |
| duration change? | Yes/no |
| native audio in the shot? | Yes/no |
| reopens grade | Yes/no, filled by the colourist or by the matrix below |
| reopens mix | Yes/no, filled by the mixer or by the matrix below |
| signed | Producer, before anyone hits generate |
No row, no regen. A verbal "just swap the hero shot" is how a Friday mix becomes a Monday mix.
This is the finishing cousin of change orders when variants are nearly free. The trigger is not output count. The trigger is a locked decision reopening. Billing the work as direction, not as another revision round keeps the conversation on what the request invalidates, not on how many times you pressed go.
Do not price the change-list in generation units. Generation is the cheap half. Grade, mix, captions that were spotted to picture, and a client review cycle against a new cut are the expensive half. Quote the departments that reopen. The split is the same one you already use when you quote exploration separately from finish: lock is the gate, not a courtesy pause.
Which changes reopen grade and mix
Fill this matrix into the change-list so nobody is guessing on a Friday.
| Request after lock | Picture | Grade | Mix |
|---|---|---|---|
| Regen the same framing, new take | New shot | Reopen. A new sample is a new look, even if the prompt did not change. | Reopen if the shot carries native audio, dialogue, or a hard sync point. Ambience-only beds can sometimes be reused. Ask the mixer. |
| Swap to a take already in the bin, same duration | Recut | Reopen if the take was not already matched. | Reopen if action or mouth shape changed. |
| Duration change (trim, extend, hold) | Recut | Usually reopen. Timing of the grade's windows moves. | Reopen. Spotting, fades, and limiter behaviour all move. |
| Crop or reframe, no new pixels | Recut | Reopen if the crop changes what is in frame enough to retouch windows. | No, unless you also changed duration. |
| Burned-in captions or titles | Picture | Reopen if they sit in the grade. | No, unless they replaced a spot. Prefer sidecar captions over burning them in after lock. |
| Music swap, VO swap, SFX only | No | No | Reopen. |
| Loudness pass only | No | No | No new picture. Mix work, not a picture change-list. |
Two rules underneath the table:
A new sample is always a new shot. Colour-matching a regen "to the old one" is how you spend an afternoon restoring a look you already had, on pixels that will not sit. If the old take was graded, the new take goes through the same grade process, not a copy of the node tree with the clip swapped.
Duration is a mix event. Mixers build to picture. A trim of eight frames is small on a timeline and large on a music edit, a dialogue overlap, and a limiter that was looking at a transient you just removed.
If the request is actually "make it feel different," that is not a change-list row. That is a direction change, and it belongs in the quote, not in finishing.
How to hold the line when regen is cheap
The client can see that another take is fast. You cannot pretend it is not. You can make the cost of using it visible.
Hold picture review on a share link, not on a file they can take into their own NLE. A review loop on previews and share links keeps the argument on the cut you sent. The editor is EDL-based, so the timeline stays a description you can re-render. preview: true gives a 480p pass at no credit cost with a short per-user cooldown; the export charge lands once on the version you confirm. That is for your iteration, not for a client-facing master. Billing shape is in previews and the final export.
On the lock date:
- Freeze the timeline and the shot map. Every locked shot has a
shot_idand a hash. - Send a picture-lock reference movie plus the change-list template, empty.
- Write the rule in the same email: any regen after this date is a change-list item, quoted against the matrix, before it is generated.
- Keep the locked renders. Do not overwrite them with a "better" sample you have not been paid to conform.
If they still want the regen, you run it. You do not sneak it into the grade. You do not ask the mixer to "see if it sits." You open the row, you quote the reopen, and you proceed when it is signed.
Lock is not a refusal to generate. It is a refusal to pretend a new sample is the old shot.
FAQ
Does regenerating one shot unlock the whole film?
No. It unlocks that shot and whatever depends on it. A cutaway with no native audio and no grade window on it might only reopen picture. A hero close-up with dialogue reopens grade and mix for that region, and may force a recut of the adjacent handles. The change-list is per shot so you do not treat a single regen as a new job, and so you do not treat it as free.
What if the client approved a preview, not the online?
Then you have not locked. A 480p preview pass is a review render with a per-user cooldown, not the master. Lock against the files that finishing will actually grade and mix. If they signed a preview, say so in the log, and treat the first online as the lock candidate, not as a surprise.
Can we lock picture and keep generating options "just in case"?
You can generate into an exploration bin. You cannot drop those takes onto a locked timeline without a change-list row. Options that sit off the timeline do not reopen grade or mix. Options that replace a locked shot do. Keep the bins separate so a "we already had a better one" does not bypass the signature.
Who fills in "reopens grade" and "reopens mix"?
The colourist and the mixer, or a producer applying the matrix above when those people are not in the room. The client does not fill those columns. "It's a small change" is a request, not a diagnosis.