Editor's locked assembly — all takes reviewed, transitions placed, timing locked. Distinguished from rough cut by color correction and final sound mixing applied.
During editing, there comes a moment when you stop trying out variations and say: This is it. The cut version. This is not the rough cut — where you still have three different versions side-by-side and the director can't make up their mind. This is the version where the takes are selected, the transitions are right, the timing is correct. The sound is adjusted, the color matches, no more flicker in the cuts. This is the working product that goes into the next process.
In practice, this means: You have reviewed all the rushes — multiple takes per shot, different camera movements, editing reactions. You have selected the best versions, not just technically clean, but dramatically correct. The cut version is the point where continuity errors have been fixed, where jump cuts have been deliberately used or avoided, where the rhythm cuts match the music tempo. Color grading is not luxuriously polished — but consistent. Sound mix is done in preparation, so that dialogue and music don't work against each other.
This differs fundamentally from the rough cut: The rough cut is still raw assembly editing, often with placeholder music, unbalanced levels, two or three variants of a scene side-by-side. Some editors also call this the first cut. The cut version, on the other hand, is what you can give a status to the producer, the distributor, or the broadcaster. It is lock-ready — not immune to feedback, but it is complete.
Often, the cut version is also called the Director's Cut — if the director has approved it. After this come visual effects, final color, final sound design. But the structure, the length, the story told: that is established in the cut version. If you need changes later — because a scene is four seconds too long, because a dissolve needs to be sharper — those are then revisions, not reworkings of the base version. A stable cut version is the foundation for everything that happens afterward.