Masters, Mezzanines & Deliverables
The whole delivery workflow rests on one idea: make one pristine master, then derive everything else from it. This chapter defines the file hierarchy — master, mezzanine, and deliverable — so you always know which file you're making and why.
Delivery vocabulary sounds like a wall of jargon, but underneath it is a simple, logical hierarchy of files, and once you see it, everything clicks. At the top sits your master: the single highest-quality, pristine version of your finished film, fully graded and mixed, exported in a high-end format with no visible compression. Think of it as the negative — the definitive source you protect and never post online or hand to a festival directly. From that master you create deliverables: the specific packaged versions each destination requires — a DCP for cinema, a compressed screener for a festival portal, a streaming master for a platform, a broadcast package for a TV sale. In between, you'll sometimes hear mezzanine: a high-quality intermediate file, lighter than the full master but still excellent, used as a convenient working source to make various deliverables from. The mental model that makes delivery manageable is this: one master at the top, many deliverables below, all flowing from that single pristine source. Get the master right, and every delivery is just a controlled derivation.
The file hierarchy
Know these three tiers and you know the whole system:
- The master. Your definitive, highest-quality file — final grade, final mix, high-end codec (like ProRes 4444 or an uncompressed/lossless format), correct resolution and frame rate. This is your "negative." Store it safely; it's the source of everything.
- The mezzanine (optional). A high-quality intermediate — smaller than the master but still visually excellent (often ProRes 422 HQ) — that's easier to store and work from when generating multiple deliverables. Not always needed, but handy on bigger projects.
- Deliverables. The purpose-built packages each destination demands: DCP (cinema), screener file (festival review), streaming/VOD master, broadcast master, trailer files, and so on. Each is derived from the master to a precise spec.
- Supporting files. Delivery is rarely just the picture — it usually includes separate audio stems, subtitle/caption files, artwork, metadata, and paperwork (chain of title, music cue sheets). More on these in later chapters.
Make the master first, protect it always
The one discipline that separates smooth deliveries from chaotic ones is creating a proper master before you make a single deliverable, and treating it as sacred. When your film is finally locked, graded, and mixed, your very first export should be the master — the best-quality version, in a robust format, with everything correct — and then you make copies. This matters for three reasons. First, quality: every deliverable you create will be a compression or transformation of its source, and you want that source to be pristine, because you can always go from high quality to low, but never the reverse — a screener made from a full master looks better than one made from another compressed file. Second, flexibility: months later a new opportunity appears (a foreign sale, a different festival, a platform with its own specs), and if you have a clean master you can generate whatever new deliverable they need in an afternoon; if you don't, you're re-exporting from your editing project, which may have moved, changed, or broken. Third, safety: your master is the irreplaceable artifact of all your work, so you back it up in multiple places and guard it, because losing it means potentially losing the ability to ever deliver your film again. A practical tip: when you make your master, also make and safely store the separate audio stems (dialogue, music, effects) and a textless version (without titles or subtitles burned in), because foreign and broadcast deliveries frequently require these and re-creating them later is painful. In short, the workflow is always the same shape — finish the film, make the pristine master, protect and back it up, then derive each deliverable from it to the exact spec required. Every remaining chapter is really about that last step: turning your master into the specific package a cinema, festival, streamer, or broadcaster will accept. And to do that well, you need to understand the raw materials those packages are built from — codecs and containers, which is where we go next.
A film I worked on got a surprise foreign sale a year after release — great news, until the buyer's spec sheet asked for a textless master and separate audio stems. We'd never made them, the edit project was a mess of relinked media on a drive nobody could find, and recreating clean stems took a miserable week. On my next film I made the master, the stems, and a textless version on day one of picture lock and backed them up three ways. When opportunities came, delivery was a same-day job. Make the master first, make the extras while you're there, and never touch the editing project again if you can help it.
Run your finished film through Distribution Readiness — check your masters, deliverables, and specs against what festivals and platforms require, so you catch problems before a rejection letter does.