9 of 10 · for editorial
Every frame has a number printed on it by the manufacturer.
Keykode is machine-readable edge numbering, introduced by Kodak in 1990, printed along the film so that any frame can be identified for the rest of its life.
It is how an edit made from a copy gets matched back to the original negative, frame for frame. Digital never needed it, so a generation of editors and assistants has never had to think about it.
The chain
From processed negative to picture lock.
Scan
The negative is scanned to digital files. Resolution and how much you scan are budget decisions taken in prep — process everything, scan selectively, is a normal and sensible policy. Pinewood runs 4K single-scan dailies workflows for film productions.
Cut
Editorial works on the scanned files exactly as on any digital job. Nothing exotic here, which surprises people. The difference is what those files are pointing at.
Conform
The locked edit is matched back to the original negative using the edge numbers, producing a cut list. Kodak’s barcodes let that be generated automatically. Before them, a person read numbers off the film.
Grade
Where the latitude in the negative gets used. The reason a colourist can lift a window that looked blown on the floor is that it was never blown on the negative.
What an assistant editor needs to know
Three habits that come back.
Keep the keykode with the media, always — it is the link to the original and an edit that loses it is expensive to rebuild. Understand that the scan is a copy and the negative is the original. And know that a scan can be redone at higher resolution years later from the same negative, which is an argument you may need to make to a producer one day.
