Video machines to properly synchronize before the edit point. (2) In sound

editing and mixing, preroll usually refers to how much program you want to

hear before the sound you’re focusing on.

Principal (actors) The core ensemble of actors through whom the film’s story is

told. Other actors may play secondary roles or serve as extras.

Print master A finished mix encoded into a distribution sound format used to

create an optical soundtrack.

Pulldown (1) In the transfer from film to NTSC video, the process that slows the

film chain by 0.1 percent to accommodate NTSC’s 29.97 noninteger frame rate.

(2) Material added before the FFOA of mixed reels to facilitate joining of reels

for platter projection. The final 24 frames (usually) of the previous reel are

copied to the head of a reel. This practice is not common.

Pullup (1) The speeding up of the film chain by 0.1 percent when transferring from

NTSC video rate to “full” film rate. (2) Material added after the LFOA of mixed

reels to compensate for the offset between a projector’s gate and sound reader

when reels are joined. The minimum pullup is 20 frames, which are copied from

the head of the next reel and added to the tail of the current reel. To properly

add pullups, you must know FFOA and LFOA for each reel.

Reconform The manual assembling of original sound or video elements to match

an offline edit. Compare this to an auto-assembly, which is largely an automatic

process.

Reel, editing A reel of no more than about 1000 feet. When films were edited on

Moviolas or flatbed editing tables, the longest reasonable length of film editors

could work with was 1000 feet, so traditionally, dialogue and other elements

were edited and premixed in 1000-ft loads. After the premixes, the recorded

reels were joined into 2000-ft double reels for the final mix, which was how the

completed married print was distributed to theaters. When reels 1 and 2 were

joined, the resulting reel was referred to as “Reel 1 A/B”; reels 3 and 4 became

“Reel 2 A/B,” and so forth. In today’s electronic world, films are almost always

sound-edited and mixed in 2000-ft reels.

Reel, exhibition A 2000-ft reel of film for distribution to theaters.

Resolver A device for controlling the playback speed of a tape recorder. Typically,

field recordings have a pilot tone or timecode embedded into the signal. A resolver

compares the recorded pilot tone signal with a known reference, possibly mains

frequency or a crystal, to precisely recreate the speed of the original recording.

Ripple mode An editing function in which changes to the edit point result in corresponding

changes to the rest of the timeline to the “right” of the edit. A delete

ripple edit closes the gap of a selected area, advancing all subsequent material

on that track. Inserting in the ripple mode delays all subsequent material by the

amount of the insert. Pro Tools calls this the Shuffle mode.

Room tone The “air” of a location recording. Remove all words, movements,

and noises from a dialogue recording and this is what’s left. It’s the dialogue

editor’s most valuable tool for removing noises, bridging mismatched shots,

and inserting ADR. Room tone is not the same thing as backgrounds or

atmospheres.

Scrubbing A method of precisely locating a specific spot by listening to modulations

while slowly moving the sound head (or the cursor in a DAW) over a track.