Client notes rarely arrive where the editing happens. They come as an email, a PDF exported from a review link or a WhatsApp message the producer forwarded, and they end up on the second monitor.
The editor reads a line, types the timecode into Premiere, makes the change, looks back at the list and strikes the line out in a text file or on a printout. Twenty notes means twenty trips between two windows, and the only record of what’s done sits on one computer.
A week later someone asks whether the logo note made it into v3, and the answer is in that file. The client usually finds out what happened to each note by watching the next cut and checking them one at a time.
In short
- Read the whole round once, in timeline order, before you fix anything.
- Keep the notes pass apart from your own creative changes, and ask before changing what nobody asked for.
- Every trim moves the timecodes after it, so work from the last note back or put the notes on the timeline as markers.
- Answer every note in writing, and resolve it only once the change is in the cut.
- A review panel moves the list from the second monitor into Premiere, next to the timeline.
Read every note before you touch the timeline
Go through the whole round once, in timeline order, without fixing anything. It takes five minutes and settles what you’ll do first.
Sort the notes as you read:
- Most are fixes with one right answer: a typo in a lower third, a cut that lands two frames late, music that’s too loud under the interview.
- Some are matters of taste, like a different take or a slower ending.
- Some are questions.
- A few are about the whole cut (“it feels long”). Those have no frame, so put them at the top of your list instead of on whatever moment the client happened to be paused on.
The read-through is also when you catch two people asking for opposite things, say legal wanting the disclaimer bigger while marketing wants it off the end card. Settle that before you edit, since cutting both versions takes longer than sending one email.
Our post on conflicting feedback from several stakeholders has a message you can adapt.
Keep the notes pass apart from the creative pass
A notes pass does what was asked. A creative pass is where you improve the cut on your own judgment. Both belong in the job, but a v2 that mixes them is hard to check.
The client opens it to confirm their twelve notes, finds six other things that moved and starts writing notes about those.
When you spot something nobody asked for, ask before you change it. Maybe the new track is shorter and the cut at 0:48 now lands a little behind the beat.
Leave a question on that frame: “The new music ends earlier, so this cut is slightly off the beat. Want me to move it?”
A yes takes the client ten seconds, and the change arrives already approved. If you do make a change on your own, say so in the message that goes out with v2.
Every cut moves the notes after it
The client’s timecodes describe the version they watched. Trim three seconds at 0:20 and everything after that point moves three seconds earlier in your sequence, while the note still says 1:10.
Fixes to color, titles or sound leave the length alone, while trims and removed shots change it.
Two habits deal with it. Do the fixes that change duration from the last note back to the first, so the notes you haven’t reached still sit on picture you haven’t touched.
Or put the notes on the timeline as sequence markers before you start. With Ripple Sequence Markers turned on in the Markers menu, they shift along with ripple edits. Getting them onto the right frame is its own small job, covered in our guide to importing client comments as markers in Premiere.
Before either, duplicate the sequence and work on the copy. The version the client reviewed stays as it was, and when someone asks what used to be there, you can show them.
Answer every note, then resolve it
Every note deserves a written answer, even a short one. “Done.” “Done, with the wide shot, because the close-up is soft.” “We don’t have that angle. Would A or B work?”
The answer goes on the note itself, where the client will look for it, and not in an email that sums up twelve changes in one paragraph.
Send questions as soon as you find them, before the export. If note 7 needs a decision, ask when you read it and keep working on the rest. The answer often comes back before you reach that part of the timeline.
Resolve a note when the change is in the cut, and not before. Then, before you export, look at what’s still open. Anything left is a fix you haven’t made or a question still waiting for an answer.
What a review panel in Premiere changes
A review panel moves the list from the second monitor into the editor.
A good one shows the notes for the sequence you have open, moves the playhead to a note’s frame when you click it, keeps up with you as you play through the cut and lets you answer and resolve without opening a browser.
Premiere lets other tools add their own panels, which dock next to the timeline like Lumetri Color or the Markers panel. Since version 25.6, Premiere also runs plugins built on UXP, the JavaScript platform Adobe uses across Creative Cloud apps, according to Adobe’s UXP introduction.
A UXP plugin comes as a .ccx file. You double-click it, Creative Cloud asks you to confirm, and the panel appears under Window > UXP Plugins, as Adobe’s install guide describes.
How this works in RecReview
The RecReview panel for Premiere is a UXP plugin for Premiere 25.6 or newer, available on the Pro and Studio plans and during the free trial.
You download it in Settings, under Devices, and connect it with a code that you approve in the RecReview app for Mac or in the browser, so no password is typed into Premiere.
The panel finds the video by itself. It looks for the video code, like BRD_003, in the sequence name.
If the name has none, it checks the files and names of the clips in the sequence and then the project name. It opens the latest version of that video.
Once a sequence is linked, going back to it reopens the same review, and switching to a sequence with another code switches the video. It’s a good reason to name sequences after the video.
Click a comment and the playhead jumps to its frame. Play the timeline and the list scrolls along with your playhead, and a comment you type in the panel lands at the playhead’s time.
You reply, react and resolve right there, on the same thread the client sees in the browser. The eye icon hides resolved notes and the search finds a note by its text or its author.
New comments from the client show up in the list while you work. The panel’s own player starts folded away, since the Program Monitor already shows the picture.
The jump goes to the time in the version the client watched. Once you’ve cut time out earlier in the sequence, it lands late by that amount, so the advice about working from the end still applies.
If you’d rather have the notes on the timeline, Markers in the panel’s ⋯ menu puts every comment on the sequence in one step.
On a Mac with the RecReview app installed, Send new version in the same menu exports the sequence with Premiere’s high bitrate H.264 preset matched to the source. The file is named with the video code and the next version number and saved to a RecReview Premiere folder inside Movies.
The first time, the Mac app asks whether it can upload those exports. After that it uploads each one as the next version of the same video, and your replies and resolved notes stay on the version the client reviewed.
