Add shots¶
A shot placed on a reel is a clip: the shot's range, playing in the reel's running order. The shot itself is untouched, and the same shot can be on any number of reels.
The shot picker, under the Shots tab on a reel tab, lists every shot you have ever marked on this computer, across every shot selects file, whether or not that file is open. Mark a shot in any shot selects and it shows up here. The picker is searchable, so a reel starts from a query rather than from memory.
Shots tab, or Library?
Two things sound alike and are not the same. The Shots tab is the picker inside a reel, for choosing what goes on this reel. The Library window (File › Library…) is where the shots themselves are managed: which shot selects files this computer knows about, the values behind your overlay fields, logos, and music. The picker reads from the library; it does not change it.
Shots are listed per computer, not per file. A shot selects file opened on another machine starts with nothing in its picker until its shots are marked there, or the file is added to that machine's library.
Right-click anywhere in the picker for Add Shots Help, and right-click a shot for Reveal in File Browser or Open Source Selects.
The ways in¶
| Do this | The shot lands |
|---|---|
| Double-click a shot in the picker | At the end of the reel |
| Drag a shot from the picker onto the reel timeline | Where you let go. See Where a dragged shot lands. |
| Right-click empty strip, then Add › Shot… | At the end of the reel |
| Right-click a clip, then Add After › Shot… | Directly after that clip |
| Right-click a gap, then Fill with a Shot… | In the gap |
Double-click is the fastest way to build from nothing: pick shots in order and they stack up end to end, each at its full length.
The right-click routes open a larger picker window with the same filter, which is worth having when you know where the shot goes but not yet which shot it is. Double-click a shot there, or select it and choose Use This Shot.
Shots already on the reel are left out of every picker, because a shot can be on a reel only once. A filter that should match something and comes back empty usually means those shots are already in the edit.
Where a dragged shot lands¶
While you drag, the reel timeline shows where the shot will go. Two words the table needs: a gap is a stretch of the reel where nothing plays, and a card is a clip with no footage behind it. Each has its own page, Gaps and Cards.
| Let go | What happens |
|---|---|
| Near a cut, or at either end of the reel | The shot is inserted there, and everything after it moves later. |
| Over a gap | The shot fills the gap, placed under the pointer. A shot longer than the gap is cut to fit, so nothing after the gap moves. |
| Over the first half of a clip, with a shorter shot | The shot takes the start of the clip's time, and the clip keeps the rest. Nothing after it moves. |
| Over the second half of a clip, with a shorter shot | The same, at the end of the clip's time. |
| Over a clip, with a shot as long or longer | The shot replaces the clip and keeps the clip's screen time. |
| Over a clip, holding Ctrl | The shot replaces the clip at its own full length, and the clips after it move to fit. |
| Past the end of the reel | The shot goes at the end. Let go further out and a gap is left before it. |
A card counts as a clip here: drop a shot on it and the same rules apply.
When a replacement keeps the old clip's screen time, which part of the new shot plays follows Holds and shortening.
Narrow the list first¶
The filter box takes the same query language as the shot list's, so
rating:4 tag:creature -project:"Old Reel" works here too. Every word has
to match, a quoted phrase matches as one, a leading - excludes, and
field:value looks in one field. The source file's name is searched too,
so part of a file name finds every shot cut from that file. See
Filter the list for
the full syntax.
The stars beside the filter box set a minimum rating without typing. Click
the fourth star and the list drops to your four- and five-star work; click
it again to clear it. Unrated shots never pass a star filter. With both the
stars and a typed rating: set, the stricter one wins.
The count at the bottom left reads as 12 of 80 shots while the filter box has text in it, and as 80 shots when it is empty, whatever the stars are doing.
The two buttons at the right of the filter row switch between a list and a thumbnail grid, and the slider at the bottom sizes the thumbnails; ShotWork remembers both. In a narrow panel the list drops its Tags, Rating, From and Length columns, in that order, and every row's tooltip still has all of it.
Shots you mark in another tab after opening the reel appear in the picker once you choose the refresh button at its bottom edge, "Rescan the library for shots marked since this reel was opened".
What happens¶
The shot becomes a clip at its full length, and the reel grows by that much.
Right-click a clip and choose Edit Metadata… to open the shot in its own shot selects. Whatever you change there reaches every open reel at once, so an overlay that prints the shot's fields updates without reopening the reel.
- Restricted shots show as red rows in the picker, and their tooltip says so. You can still add them. Export Video asks before it exports a reel that holds any, unless the reel was built with Include restricted shots. See Restricted.
- A clip whose video file has moved keeps its place but draws under a red hatch, and the preview plays it as black so the rest of the reel still plays. The problems list names the file. Right-click the clip and choose Relink Source… to point its shot selects at where the file is now; every open reel picks that up at once. Export waits until every clip is back.
- A clip whose shot was deleted from its shot selects shows as Missing: followed by the shot's name, under a red hatch. It plays as black in the preview and blocks export until you remove it, or point it at another shot with Replace With….
Related¶
- Arrange clips once there is more than one.
- Start a reel if you would rather ShotWork made the first pass from your ratings.