workprint

[ wurk-print ]

noun

, Movies.

1. the first positive print of a film, assembled from the dailies: used in the editing process.

Word History and Origins

Origin of workprint¹

First recorded in 1935–40; work + print

Example Sentences

Of course, contentious director’s cuts are nothing new: consider the infamous Blade Runner: Director’s Cut, which was based on a workprint version of the movie but wasn’t actually produced directly by director Ridley Scott.

From The Verge

As it turned out, Snyder did cut some sort of version of the film together before leaving the project, but it seems to have been more in the nature of a workprint than a director’s cut, with unfinished effects shots and unmixed audio.

From Slate

Even with the knowledge that the “Other Side of the Wind” completers drew from Welles’ notes and, as they mention in the opening crawl, “a workprint consisting of assemblies and a few edited scenes,” the final film remains merely an educated guess — other people’s interpretation of what Welles had intended.

From Los Angeles Times

Nothing came easy—not even a dissolve or a fade-out, which had to be marked on a workprint and sent to a laboratory for realization.

From The New Yorker

The last big example was 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine; in that case, a rough cut workprint of the film was leaked weeks before the finished version reached theaters.

From The Verge