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Overlay templates

An overlay template is a layout of text, images, logos and field items drawn over a clip. A field item prints one of the shot's own fields, so one template labels a whole reel: every shot prints its own name, project, company, role and year.

Playback crossing a cut, the overlay fading in on the new shot and filling in with that shot's own details

ShotWork ships one template, Basic Lower Third: role and company over a dark band along the bottom of the frame, with a small "built with ShotWork" line under them. Every template you build yourself appears beside it as a tile on the Features tab. The pictures on this page use one called Lower Third, built that way.

Put one on the reel

  1. Open the Features tab.
  2. Drag a template tile onto the reel timeline, anywhere but a clip. The whole clip row washes blue; let go and the template becomes the reel default, on every shot.
  3. To give one shot a different template, drag that tile onto the shot's clip. Only that clip washes green, and only that shot changes.
One template dropped on the strip, becoming the default on all three clips, then a second dropped on the middle clip alone as an override

A shot you add to the reel later gets the reel default too.

A template tile dropped onto one clip: the override lands on that shot alone, and the template band shows it

The template band

Once a reel has a template, the template band runs along the top of the reel timeline, one stretch per clip.

  • A shot's stretch shows its template's name and one line of the values the template will print. A restricted shot adds (restricted).
  • An override is tinted green. An excluded shot's stretch is dimmed and reads excluded, and a gap's or card's stretch is dimmed with nothing to print.
  • The dotted handle at either end of the band expands it to one line per field item, the field's name and its value, and collapses it again.

Select a shot's stretch and the panel shows:

Setting Does
This shot Inherit default (Lower Third), with the default's name, follows the reel default. Excluded draws nothing on this shot. A template's name overrides the default for this shot.
Reel default The template every shot inherits, or None.
Fade-in How many frames the overlay takes to fade in after every cut, for the whole reel. 6 by default; 0 makes it appear at once.

Clicking a gap's or card's stretch selects the whole band, and only Reel default and Fade-in show.

Right-click a shot's stretch for:

  • Edit “Lower Third”…, with the template's name, to open the template editor on it.
  • Override Template, with Reel default (Lower Third), Excluded and every saved template, the current choice checked.
  • Remove Overlay from Reel.

A gap's or card's stretch offers Remove Overlay from Reel alone.

Press Del with a shot's stretch selected to exclude that shot. With the whole band selected, Del removes the overlay from the reel: the default and every override.

Tip

Excluded keeps one shot clean without disturbing the rest: the reel keeps its default, and that clip alone draws nothing.

On the free tier

Without a license, Basic Lower Third is on every shot of every reel, it is the only tile on the Features tab, and the band's choices cannot be changed. A reel built under a license keeps its own choices in its file and shows them again the moment a license is entered. See The free tier and your license.

What happens

  • Templates are used by name. The reel stores the default template's name and each shot's override, not copies of the templates. Edit a template and every reel that uses it updates. Rename one in the editor, and open reels follow the new name.
  • Field items fill in live. Values come from each shot's details when the overlay is drawn and when the reel exports, so a change made in a shot selects file reaches open reels at once.
  • Restricted shots never print the fields their field preset marks Hide on restricted, such as company and project, nor their notes or those fields' logos, whatever the template holds. The rest of the layout still draws.
  • An empty field draws nothing, and its place in the layout stays empty.
  • The overlay sits on the reel's frame, not on the clip's picture, so scaling a clip does not move it.
  • It fades in after each cut, and out with a clip's own fade. An item that shows the same thing on both sides of a cut holds steady instead: a company name, a logo or a color box that carries over stays put while the items that change fade in. Nothing holds across a gap, a card or the reel's start.
  • Export Video burns each shot's overlay into the picture at the output size. Export Timeline puts the overlays on a second video track as images, so your editor can adjust or hide them.
  • Cards get no overlay. A title card is a template of its own; see Cards.
  • A template whose file was deleted draws nothing.