Skip to content

Getting started

A first session, start to finish, in about ten minutes. Every step links to the page that covers it fully; the steps themselves are enough to get through once.

1. Install it and open it

Run the installer and open ShotWork. On the first launch, Set up ShotWork offers to fetch ffmpeg, which ShotWork reads and exports video with; let it. When the window opens, read the rights notice it shows. Details: Install ShotWork and First launch.

2. Open any video and mark three shots

  1. Choose File › Open Video… (Ctrl+Shift+O) and pick any video on your disk.
  2. Play with Space.
  3. Press I where a shot starts and O where it ends. A shot appears in the shot list on the left.
  4. Do that twice more.
  5. Give each shot a name in the detail panel on the right while it is fresh.

Full detail: Mark in and out points and Describe a shot.

3. Save the shot selects

Press Ctrl+S. Save Selects suggests the name shots.swselects; save it beside your video, which is where ShotWork looks first if either moves later. Nothing has been exported: the file is a record of the marks and names, and the library, ShotWork's index of every file you save, now knows about those three shots. What is saved and when: Documents and tabs.

4. Cut a reel from them

Choose File › New Reel. The shot picker on the left lists every shot the library knows; double-click your three in the order you want them. Press Space to watch the cut. Everything else a reel can do, from music to overlays, is in Building a reel.

5. Export the shots as clips

Go back to the shot selects tab and choose File › Export… (Ctrl+E). Batch Export writes one file per shot. See Export shots.

6. Export the reel as a video

On the reel's tab, choose the same File › Export…. Export Video writes the reel as one file. See Export a reel as video.

Where to go next

Marking shots opens with a tour of the window, and Building a reel picks up where step 4 left off. Nothing above needs a license; The free tier and your license says what one adds.

Tip

Help › Documentation, or F1, opens this site from inside ShotWork.