A Tool for Performance Selection
During film production, a single scene is shot multiple times from various angles (‘coverage’) to provide options in the edit. For any given camera setup—for instance, a medium shot of one actor—a director may shoot numerous takes to capture different nuances in performance. Sifting through all this raw footage to find the best moments can be incredibly time-consuming. The coverage reel, sometimes called a ‘selects reel’ or ‘stringout’, is the solution to this problem.
It is a simple, practical tool created by an assistant editor. They take all the ‘circled takes’—the ones the director or script supervisor marked as good on set—for a single setup and edit them together, one after another, into a single video file. This allows the director and editor to watch every usable performance for that specific shot in one continuous, uninterrupted sequence.
The Editorial Workflow
The coverage reel is a cornerstone of the post-production workflow, bridging the gap between raw footage and the final edited scene. The process typically looks like this:
- Assembly: The assistant editor assembles a coverage reel for each camera setup in a scene (e.g., “Wide Shot,” “MCU on Jane,” “MCU on John”).
- Review: The editor and director watch these reels. For the “MCU on Jane” reel, they can easily compare her delivery of a crucial line in Take 2 versus Take 5. They might note that her facial expression was best in Take 2, but her line reading was more powerful in Take 5.
- Selection: Based on this review, they select the exact moments—a glance, a word, a gesture—they want to use from each take.
- Scene Construction: The editor then uses these selected clips to build the final scene, weaving together the best performance moments from all the different angles.
Coverage Reels vs. Dailies
It’s important to distinguish a coverage reel from ‘dailies’ (or ‘rushes’). Dailies are a lightly processed viewing copy of all the footage shot on the previous day, including mistakes, false starts, and bad takes. A coverage reel is a much more curated and focused tool, containing only the preferred takes from a single angle, designed specifically to facilitate performance and editing choices.