Client Wants Changes After Filming Video? Your Options in Post

A client rewriting six lines of an approved script after the shoot used to cost my agency a whole week, right, and the pattern was always the same. The editor would spend four days on a first cut, then somebody who had never seen the script would send a Word document with the new lines in red and no timecodes, and my editor would scrub two hours of footage by ear to work out what could be saved, which to be very honest made it the worst week of the month.

These days, when a client wants changes after filming video, it looks really really different, even though I'm pretty sure clients will keep rewriting lines after the shoot forever. What changed is the order I do things in, right, so the cut gets transcribed first, the client marks every changed line on the exact section it touches, and we sort each change into an edit fix, a pickup or a reshoot. At the end of the day the argument happens once, on paper, before the editor touches the timeline again.

So this is basically my triage for late changes, with PlayPause showing up where it fits because it's what my own agency runs its reviews on.

Why script changes after the shoot happen

In my agency the most common reason is really simple, right, the person who approves the cut was never the person who approved the script. A brand manager signs off the words on a page, and then the head of marketing or legal sees the edit for the first time and reacts as if it were a brand new idea. Reading a script and hearing a human say it out loud are very very different experiences, and a line that looked fine in a doc can sound stiff the moment it comes out of the CEO's mouth.

The second cause is the business moving while you edit, for instance a launch slips from March to May, and a line that was true on shoot day is false on delivery day. That's just how video production works when the company behind it keeps running, and in corporate work it's a big part of why corporate video review breaks down so often.

The third cause is ours to own, because if the creative brief never nailed the key message, the client is still working out what they want to say and they're doing it on your timeline. I've laid out the whole sign-off sequence in my post on client approval stages, since the cheapest script change is always the one that happens before anybody picks up a camera.

Whatever the cause, my first reply goes out the same day, right, asking the client to mark every change on the current cut, and promising a plan back that sorts each change by bucket with any cost and a new date attached.

Client revisions after filming: what can be fixed in the edit

Most client revisions after filming are more fixable than they look, because the client hears whole sentences while an editor sees pieces that can be moved, and I reach for three tools in post in roughly this order.

The first is the re-cut, where you lift the line, reorder sections or pull an alternate take closer to the new wording, and this is where good film editing earns its money, since a cutaway hides the join. For instance, if the founder says "we launch in March" and launch is now May, you might find a take where she says "we launch this spring", or you drop the date and let the end card carry it.

The second is the voiceover pickup, and to be very honest it's the one I use the most. If the new line only has to be heard and not seen being spoken, you record the talent saying it and lay it over b-roll, product shots or graphics, and the catch here is that a VO pickup over a face that is clearly talking looks wrong instantly, so the picture under it has to change too.

The third is on-screen text, so supers, lower thirds, a price card, a disclaimer or an end frame with the new date. When the change is a fact rather than a feeling, and especially in ad work where legal just needs a claim qualified, a super at the right moment fixes it without touching the audio at all, you see what I mean here.

Three fixes live in post

A recut from alternate takes, a voiceover pickup laid over b roll, or on screen text supers. If the change needs a mouth saying new words on camera, it has left the edit.

When a pickup or reshoot is unavoidable

The rule I use comes down to what the change touches, right. A line that only needs to be heard can live as a voiceover and a fact that only needs to be read can live as a super, but once the change needs a mouth on camera saying new words, you need the camera back. I would never fake that lip sync with AI either, because the moment an audience spots it the client's brand takes the hit and your agency's name goes with it, does that make sense, right.

A pickup shoot is the small version, basically the same talent, location, lens and lighting for just the lines that changed, often in half a day. The catch here is continuity, so wardrobe, hair, window light and so on all have to match what you shot weeks ago, which is why I keep stills of the setup from every shoot day. A full reshoot is when the change hits the spine of the piece, like a new spokesperson, and on commercial and ad productions with talent usage and crew rates in play, naming a pickup day early is usually cheaper than arguing about whether you need one.

A worked example of the triage

Say we've cut a 90 second founder video for a software launch against an approved script, and the client sends six changes, a made up email but exactly the pattern I see:

1. The founder says "we launch in March" to camera but launch is now May, so we use a take without the date and let the end card carry it.
2. The price on a product super moves from $49 to $59, a text change that takes minutes.
3. Legal wants "guaranteed results" qualified, so a disclaimer super goes on that shot.
4. A renamed feature is spoken in the voiceover over b-roll, so that becomes a short VO pickup.
5. Marketing wants a new opening line said to camera, which no footage covers, so that is a pickup shoot.
6. The music swap and a tighter middle section are a normal revision inside the round they already have.

So one change is an ordinary revision, three are edit fixes billed as extra hours, one is a booth session and only one needs the camera back. Read cold, that email sounds like a full reshoot, right, and the sort is what turns it into a quote the client can actually sign.

1Mark every changed line on the current cut

2Sort each change into edit, pickup or reshoot

3Price anything outside the approved script

4Get written sign off on the plan

5Upload the new cut as the next version

Review_Cut_v4.mp4In Review

212160p · ProRes

00:34 / 02:18

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Sarah 0:34

Frame-accurate note, everyone sees the exact same thing.

Finding every affected line with a transcript

This part used to eat my editors' week, right, because somebody has to find where each old line sits in the cut, whether it repeats and whether another take has usable wording. Doing it by ear is exactly how you fix a line at the two minute mark and miss the same claim in the outro.

Now I run AI transcription on the cut, and in PlayPause the transcript is clickable, so my producer or editor clicks any line and lands on that exact moment in the player. The SRT export lets my editor search for a word like "March" and find every place it's said, and since AI transcription sits on the Agency plan and up, my walkthrough on getting started with AI transcriptions covers the setup.

For alternate takes, I upload only the takes for the affected scenes, basically treating them like dailies from the shoot for the single purpose of finding wording, and bulk upload handles a hundred or more files in one go. One search then tells you whether the talent ever said "this spring" in take four, and that find can be the difference between a re-cut and a pickup day.

$19

a month for Agency, flat per workspace

50

members on Agency

250 GB

storage on Agency

Marking script changes on the exact section

Once you know where every line is, the client has to mark the change on the exact section instead of describing it, right, because "the bit near the end about pricing" is how revision rounds double. With range comments the client drags across the in and out of a section and writes the new wording right there, stuck to the exact frame. They can also draw on the frame to show where a super should sit, or @mention the producer in a threaded reply when a note needs a decision.

I also set a custom status like Script change pending, so the team can see the video is waiting on a decision. My Premiere Pro editors see the comments inside the timeline through the PlayPause Premiere Pro panel, click one so the playhead jumps to it, and upload the new cut straight from the timeline. Editors in DaVinci Resolve or Final Cut Pro work the simple way, export, upload, review, then work through the notes in their editor.

When a fix could go two ways, like a VO line versus a super, I cut both, following my post on how to present multiple video options, so we walk away with one decision. The re-edit goes up on the same card, so MV1 is the original cut and MV2 carries the script changes, which is basically version control for video. On Agency and up, side-by-side version compare lets the client play MV1 and MV2 together to check that only the agreed lines moved, and the whole loop sits inside our client approval workflow for video.

Old way

a Word doc of new lines in red, no timecodes, and an editor scrubbing hours of footage by ear

With PlayPause

range comments on each changed line, a clickable transcript to find takes, and MV2 stacked on the same card

Pricing a video production change order and protecting the schedule

This is where a lot of agencies go soft, right, and I did too for a long time, but a script change after script approval is new scope, handled with a video production change order signed before any work starts. I've covered the mechanics in the post on how agencies bill late client requests, and the clause in my own quotes reads roughly like this. "This quote includes two rounds of edit revisions against the approved script. Changes to approved wording, talent or locations after the shoot are quoted as a change order with a revised delivery date."

Pricing follows the bucket, so edit fixes are extra hours at the normal rate, a voiceover pickup is talent plus booth time plus the edit, a pickup shoot is crew, talent and kit for the half day plus the edit, and a reshoot gets a fresh quote. Each one looks harmless on its own, which is how scope creep works, and recutting the approved film for another channel is a new deliverable, which my post on telling a revision or a new project apart covers.

The schedule matters as much as the money, to be very honest, because a pickup needs talent availability and a studio, so every change order I send carries a new delivery date that the client signs along with the cost. I keep that approval in the comment thread on the cut so it's tied to the exact version, and I've also written about how post houses bill for extra revision rounds without a dispute.

• Which lines change and where they sit in the cut
• The fix for each line, edit, pickup or reshoot
• Cost for edit hours, talent and crew
• A new delivery date
• Written client sign off before work starts

Frequently asked questions

Can you change what someone says on camera after filming?

Only partly, right, and it depends on whether the line has to be seen being spoken. You can cut a line, swap in an alternate take, cover a patched sentence with b-roll, or lay a voiceover pickup over footage where the speaker's mouth isn't visible, and supers can correct a fact on screen. What you can't do honestly is make someone appear to say words they never said, so a new line delivered to lens means a pickup shoot.

Who pays when a client wants changes after filming video?

If the client approved the script in writing and then rewrites it after the shoot, the client pays, as long as your contract says so before shoot day. If your contract is silent, I'd still send a change order for anything beyond a small fix and absorb that small fix as goodwill. Then I'd make the clause explicit on the next project, because a long argument over a missing clause costs far more than an hour of edit time.

How many revision rounds should cover script changes?

To be very honest, I'd say none, because revision rounds cover changes to the edit against an approved script, and a new script is really a new brief. I include two rounds of edit revisions in a quote and say clearly in the proposal that anything changing approved wording triggers a change order, and in my experience clients respect that kind of clear line far more than a vague promise.

Which PlayPause plan do I need for this workflow?

Range comments, drawing on the frame, custom statuses and client links with no account work on every plan, and version stacks start on Creator. AI transcription with the clickable transcript and SRT export, plus side-by-side version compare, start on the Agency plan at $19 a month, flat per workspace with up to 50 members, and that's the plan I'd pick for script change work.

If late script changes keep wrecking your schedule, run the next one through PlayPause and triage it on one link instead of a Word doc. You can compare the plans on PlayPause pricing, every plan starts with a 7-day free trial, and trust me on any level, one real re-edit will tell you more than this post can.

So yeah. That's my way of saying it.