Sync point / hit point
The exact frame where a beat, footstep, whoosh peak, or musical accent must land on the picture.
See it
What it is
A sync point, or hit point, is the exact moment an audio event must lock to a visual event: a foot touches down, a logo finishes forming, a cut lands, or a title appears. Editors mark the frame or timecode first, then aim the sound's audible attack or the music's accented beat at it.
Reach for hit points when sound must make movement feel connected, when a score must acknowledge a reveal, or when several departments need the same timing target. The old scoring technique called Mickey Mousing uses many close musical hits to follow onscreen actions. One or two strong hits usually feel deliberate; marking every movement can feel comic whether you intended it or not.
Gotcha: align what the ear hears, not the left edge of the audio file. A whoosh may begin long before its peak, a soft drum has a slow attack, and a reverberant impact has silence or swell before the transient. Check sync at normal speed and frame by frame, then watch it once without staring at the waveform.
Ask AI for it
Spot this sequence in Adobe Premiere Pro: add sequence markers at every required visual hit, label each marker with SMPTE timecode and event name, and align the audible transient or musical accent to that exact frame. Let whooshes begin before their marker and peak on it, trim pre-delay before impacts, and report every hit as [timecode] [event] [audio cue]. Do not score unmarked incidental motion.