A 'cue sheet' is a typed columnar, chronological breakdown of the 'significant' visual events appearing during the course of a 'cue' intended for a particular segment of the film. Typically a cue sheet has only three columns: the Medium Address of the event in the cue, the Real/Clock Time of the occurrence of the event (as accumulated from the start of the music for the cue, counting from time 0:00.00), then a terse Description of the visual event at that time and address. The Medium Address might be in film feet and frames. Nowadays, you are more likely to see the Medium Address in the form of video SMPTE Time Code. Thus a couple of lines of a cue sheet might look like this:
Cue sheets are usually prepared by the composer's music editor. The events listed are not just randomly selected. Most entries appear because they have some significance to the quality of the music required, particularly at given points (dialogue ins and outs, for example, are usually noted because you don't want music there of a quality which will compete with an actor's lines). The practice of preparing cue sheets in large part arose out of the fact that in the earlier days of film production composers could not readily write with reference to the actual picture: Remember... you'd need a theater, projectionist, etc. or a moviola and the ability and time to load and run it. So film composers used to see the picture a number of times at the studio, then compose later elsewhere, refreshing their recollection with reference to the music editor's notes or cue sheets. But today we have VCRs, DVD's and digital video. So the need composers once had for cue sheets is much less pressing... they can pop in a cassette and watch a scene as many times as they want. Music editors still have good uses for cue sheets, however: as reference material for changes on the scoring stage, preparing for and handling the dub, and as a diary of film edits or changes as they might occur during the course of the project.
