AV Script essentials

The AV Script is the two-column script for commercials and other timed spots: what the audience hears on the left, what they see on the right, one row per shot, with a running total against your target length. This guide covers the day-to-day mechanics of building one. For the feature overview see AV Script; for review rounds with a client see Client review.

This guide assumes The basics. The click-tap-drag vocabulary is the same as everywhere else in the app.

Where rows come from

Create rows right in the AV Script with Add row, or plan shots in the Linear Shot List — either way you end up with the same rows: the AV Script and the Linear Shot List stay in sync, in the same order. Scene headers don’t render as rows; the table is a flat run of shots. Shots that exist only on a grid board don’t appear in the AV Script — it follows the Linear list (see Linear vs Production for the distinction).

Because the two stay in sync, edits write through in both directions:

• Add row on an empty table creates a first shot in scene 1 directly. On a table with rows, it opens the Shot List’s Add New Shot dialog so you pick the scene.
• Drag a row to reorder — the new order persists as the Shot List’s linear order.
• Deleting rows deletes shots. Select rows and press Delete selected; the confirmation warns you: “This removes the shots from the Shot List too.” There is no AV-only delete.

An empty table says so itself: “No shots yet. Use “Add row”, or add shots in the Shot List — they appear here automatically.” If you’ve already built a shot list, your AV Script is pre-populated the moment you open it. See Shot list essentials for the shot-level building blocks.

The table

Five columns:

• Row — the shot number stacked over an MM:SS duration pill. Click the number to move the shot to another scene; click the pill to set the row’s duration.
• Audio — one line per enabled audio tag that has text (VO: …, SFX: …), rendered as rich text.
• Visual — a meta line of chips (INT/EXT · shot type · camera movement, each independently clickable), the shot description, any GFX lines, and a PreVis thumbnail on the right when Show PreVis is on.
• Status — the row’s review state: Draft, Review, Approved, or Rewrite. You can override it manually from the status menu (a confirmation warns that you’re overriding), but statuses are normally driven by review rounds — see Client review.
• Comments — a gutter showing each row’s latest comment and count; click it to open the row’s thread panel.

Two fields deserve a warning label. INT/EXT is scene-level — changing it from a row’s chip changes it for every shot in that scene, here and in the Shot List. And the description is the shared shot description — the same field the Shot List shows, so rewording it here rewords it everywhere.

Writing audio

Click a row’s Audio cell to open the editor. Four toggle chips — VO, SFX, MX, DIALOGUE — sit at the top, and each tag owns its own rich text. Chip behavior:

• Tap a disabled chip to enable the tag and start writing in it.
• Tap an enabled but inactive chip to switch to that tag’s text.
• Tap the active chip to toggle the tag off. Its text is hidden, not deleted — re-enable the chip and it’s back.

The read-only cell renders one line per enabled tag that has text; enabled-but-empty tags render nothing. A single row can carry all four — a voice-over line over a music cue over an effects note.

GFX overlays

Graphics live in the Visual editor. Open it, press + GFX, and pick a type: Lower Third, Super, Full Screen, Bug, or End Card. Each entry gets its own chip and its own rich text, a row can carry multiple entries (duplicates of the same type included), and entries render under the description as labeled lines (SUPER: 30% off this week). To remove one, make its chip active and press the ✕ that appears on it.

Rich text

Audio and GFX text supports exactly three formats: bold, italic, and links. To add a link, select text and use the toolbar’s link button — the Add link dialog takes a URL (https://example.com). With the cursor on an existing link, the same dialog opens as Edit link, pre-filled — apply an empty URL there to remove the link. When someone clicks a link in the table, the app asks “Open this link?” before launching the browser.

The toolbar’s clear action (the backspace icon) wipes the active text entirely — it’s a blank-slate button, not a remove-formatting button.

Timing the spot

Every row carries its own MM:SS duration — click the pill under the shot number to set it. The badge at the top center shows the total of all rows.

Click the badge to set a target: No target, a preset (15s, 30s, 45s, 60s, 90s), or Custom… for an exact MM:SS. With a target set, the badge reads total / target, and the total turns red the moment the rows add up to more than the target — your cue to trim.

Display settings

The Display popup (desktop) and the display-settings bottom sheet (phone) expose the same three options:

• Show PreVis — toggles the PreVis thumbnails in the Visual column.
• PreVis aspect ratio — the frame shape thumbnails are cropped to; only shown while PreVis is on.
• Shot numbers — US (1A, 1B, 1C), EU (1.1, 1.2, 2.1), or UK (1, 2, 3).

The aspect ratio and shot-number format are shared with the Shot List — changing either one in either tool changes it in both. See Display Settings for the shot-list side of those settings.

On the phone

The phone layout is one card per row — swipe horizontally to move between rows, like flipping through Storyboards. On each card:

• Double-tap any block to edit it — the scene number, duration, status, the AUDIO block, the VISUAL block, INT/EXT, shot type, camera movement. Each opens a bottom-sheet editor with the same semantics as desktop.
• The floating Scene N pill (shown when the project has more than one scene) jumps straight to a scene’s first row.
• The comments button opens the row’s thread as a bottom sheet. On the phone you can read the thread and add new top-level comments; long-press one of your own comments to delete it.
• The card’s PreVis slot doubles as an uploader — tap the placeholder to add an image to a shot that has none.

Exporting a PDF

Open Share — the dialog opens on the Export tab (Cmd / Ctrl + P gets you there too) — and press Export PDF. The output is an A4 portrait document: project name and the total duration (with the target, if set) in the header, then the table with Row, Audio, Visual, and PreVis columns. Bold, italic, and links survive the export — links are clickable in the PDF.

Statuses and comments are deliberately not in the PDF. It’s a clean read of the script, not a review record — for feedback, send a review link instead (Client review).

Offline behavior

Editing works fully offline — rows, durations, audio, GFX, statuses, and comments all save locally and sync when you reconnect, like everything else in CineLog. What needs a connection: creating, sending, or revoking review links (they’re server operations), and the review website itself.