Frequently Asked Questions

When I draw on my script with the Apple Pencil, my lines streak or lag behind the pencil — especially while we're rolling. My colleague's iPad on the same show doesn't do it. What's going on?

Streaking or lagging Pencil strokes are almost always a responsiveness problem rather than a drawing problem: the iPad is busy enough that it can't keep up with Pencil input in real time, so strokes arrive late and render as long straight streaks between sampled points instead of following your hand.
Why it shows up while rolling, and on one iPad but not another
The device doing the most work is the one most likely to stutter. If you're the primary in a synced setup, your iPad is handling script markup plus take logging, sync traffic, and timecode at the same time — a secondary device doing less work will often feel perfectly smooth on the same show. High memory usage has the same effect: MovieSlate's PDF engine can accumulate memory over a long session, and as free memory shrinks, input responsiveness degrades before anything actually crashes.
What helps

1. Force-close MovieSlate before the shoot day (and at lunch). Swipe up from the bottom of the screen, pause in the middle to open the App Switcher, find the MovieSlate card, and swipe it up off the screen. Reopen it fresh. This does not affect your saved data.
2. Close other running apps — browsers, video apps, and other PDF apps all compete for the same memory.
3. Restart the iPad if the lag has been building over several days. Several users have found a simple power cycle clears it.
4. Trim unneeded script PDFs from the project. Fewer and smaller PDFs mean less for the PDF engine to hold in memory.
5. Check the Pencil itself — make sure it's charged and, if you use one, that the tip is screwed on snugly. A loose tip produces its own intermittent skipping.