Building a reel

A reel is a .swreel document: clips arranged on a timeline, with music, overlay templates and cards. It draws on every shot selects file you have marked, so building one is choosing and ordering rather than hunting.

The reel tab's six regions, numbered as the table below lists them

#	Region	What it holds
1	Shots and Features tabs	Switches the left panel between the shot picker and the features: the tiles you drag onto the reel for a fade, a song, a card or an overlay template.
2	Shot picker	Every shot in your library, with a filter box that takes the same query language as the shot list's. See Add shots.
3	Viewer	The reel playing as it will export, overlays and all. See Preview a reel.
4	Reel settings panel	Selected Clip Settings for whatever you selected, and Reel Settings for the whole reel. See Reel settings.
5	Reel timeline	The template band on top, the clips in the middle, and the music and beat lanes underneath. See Arrange clips for the clips and The template band for the band.
6	Transport	The playback range slider with its fields, the nine buttons and the playhead's position: the same row a shot selects tab has. See Play and move around.

Choose a number in the table, or a badge on the picture, to show that region on its own; choose it again to bring the rest back.

A reel tab and a shot selects tab are two kinds of document, and both can be open at once. See Documents and tabs.

Where to start

1. Start a reel, empty or filled from your ratings.
2. Add shots from the picker.
3. Preview a reel as you go.
4. Arrange clips: reorder, trim, ripple, roll, slide, slip and replace.
5. Holds and shortening: how long each clip plays, and which part of its shot.
6. Set a length budget and edit toward it.

Then the rest:

To	See
Change how times read, pick the frame rate, and see what the reel remembers	Reel settings
Frame one clip inside the reel's frame	Clip picture
Put music under it and cut to the beat	Music and Beats and downbeats
Fade in and out, or dip to black	Fades and Transitions
Label every shot with its own details	Overlay templates and Build an overlay template
Hold on an image, a color or a title	Cards

When it is ready, see Exporting, or ask an AI assistant for a first cut from your library.