student asking question

What does "in the can" mean? Is it an idiom?

teacher

Native speaker’s answer

Rebecca

"In the can" here is film/movie terminology. If a film is "in the can", filming has finished and it is ready to be prepared for showing to the public. The "can" part refers to the film canister where the film is stored. Since he says get "one" in the can it seems he means to film this particular scene. Ex: We have most of the scenes in the can. Ex: The whole film is in the can. We can't do any edits.

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