Offline editing is the creative storytelling stage of filmmaking and television production where the structure, mood, pacing and story of the final show are defined. Many versions and revisions are presented and considered at this stage until the edit gets to a stage known as picture lock. This is when the process moves on to the next stages of post-production known as online editing, color grading and audio mixing.
Typically, during offline editing, all the original camera footage (often tens or hundreds of hours) is digitized into a non-linear editing system as a low resolution duplicate. The editor and director are then free to work with all the footage on assembly, creating a rough cut, and a final cut. Editing the copy allows multiple story and creative possibilities to be explored without affecting the camera original film stock or video tape. Once the project has been completely offline edited, the low resolution footage is replaced with the original high resolution media, or brought online.
