How Film Dailies Can Improve the Quality of Your Movie

The filmmaking process can be chaotic, with many moving parts working together at once. Film productions have tight shooting schedules, meaning there's little room to course-correct if footage isn't turning out as expected. Reviewing dailies ensures that filmed footage hits a high standard during production.

Dailies are the unedited footage for a movie or TV show that is collected at the end of each day for viewing by select above-the-line members of the film crew. Watching the day's raw footage allows the creative team to assess the progress and quality of the shoot so they can adjust their plans going forward.

In the United Kingdom and Canada, dailies are also known as "daily rushes" because they need to be prepared as quickly as possible. In animation, the viewing of dailies is sometimes called a "sweat box session" due to the small, hot screening rooms where the dailies were screened.

Before the age of digital cinema, dailies were the only way a film production's creative team could assess the results of a day of shooting. The film reel from a day's shoot would be sent overnight to a film laboratory for processing, synced with the day's audio recordings, and made into a new film print ready to screen.

Producing dailies on film stock is time-consuming and expensive. Due to these drawbacks, not all the takes a crew filmed would be turned into dailies. When a director wanted a certain take included in the dailies, they might yell "Cut! Print it!" after completing the shot.

Digital dailies require much less time to prepare and are viewable the same day the footage was shot. Film dailies were originally screened on a projector in a screening room, but digital dailies are usually uploaded onto servers or hard drives for crew members to watch on their own personal computers.

A feature film's director, producers, editor, cinematographer, and studio executives typically watch the dailies, which are useful for several reasons.

1. 1. Dailies reveal potential technical problems. It's important to make sure your footage turned out as expected as soon as possible. If there are any technical problems or missing angles that require scenes to be reshot, it's helpful to know immediately so that the film production still has access to the actors, sets, and crew.
2. 2. Dailies display the general quality of the footage. If the footage is unsatisfactory, you can make adjustments to improve the shoot going forward. These adjustments can include anything from the cinematography to the production design to the performances of the actors.
3. 3. Dailies allow off-set producers to keep tabs on the production. Dailies give studio executives, investors, and producers who aren't on set every day the ability to monitor and provide input on projects.
4. 4. Dailies serve as a continuity reference for new shots. Sometimes a director needs to pull up the dailies to make sure a new shot matches previously filmed footage. For example, a director might want to match cut between two scenes. To do this effectively, the director needs to reference the visuals of one scene in order to mimic them in the second scene.

Become a better filmmaker with the MasterClass Annual Membership. Gain access to exclusive video lessons taught by film masters, including David Lynch, Spike Lee, Jodie Foster, and more.