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Organize shots

Marking produces a list that needs tidying: a shot that should be two, a duplicate to trim differently, a run of takes to delete.

Change what exists

Action Hotkey Also
Split at the playhead S Shots › Split Shot at Playhead, or right-click the shot's band
Duplicate Ctrl+D The duplicate button under the list, or right-click the row
Delete Del The delete button under the list, or right-click the row
Move up or down Alt+Up or Alt+Down The arrow buttons under the list
Sort by in point no default key Shots › Sort Shots Chronologically

Each acts on every selected shot, and each is a single undo step.

Split needs the playhead inside the shot, after its first frame. The original keeps the frames before the playhead, and a new shot starts on the playhead's frame, named with b after the original's name. It inherits every detail, lands under the original in the list, and is selected. Each half has the interest points on its side. Right-clicking a band splits at the playhead, not where you clicked; with the playhead outside the shot the item reads Split Shot (move the playhead inside this shot).

One shot that should be two: stepping a frame at a time onto the first frame of the second shot, then ++s++ splitting it there

Duplicate puts each copy directly under its original, named with copy after the original's name, with every detail and the thumbnail. The copies become the selection.

Delete does not ask, because it can be undone. The shot that moves into the deleted one's place is selected and the playhead jumps to it, so reviewing a batch is jump, Del, Del.

Move (Move Selected Shot(s) Up and Move Selected Shot(s) Down, Alt+Up and Alt+Down) moves the selection one row as a group. Shots always stay grouped by video, so a move that would leave its video's group, or a selection spanning two videos, does nothing. The list has no drag-and-drop reordering.

Sort Shots Chronologically orders each video's shots by in point, and keeps the videos in the order they already appear. It has no default hotkey, because it is a one-off tidy rather than something you reach for mid-flow; give it one in Settings › Remap Hotkeys… if you disagree.

Select in the list

  • Click a shot to select it and jump to its in point. Click it again to jump back after scrubbing away.
  • Ctrl-click adds or removes a shot, Shift-click selects a run, and dragging across rows extends the selection.
  • Ctrl+A selects every shot in the list, on every video, and Ctrl+Shift+I inverts the selection: what was selected is not, and the rest is.
  • Drag upward from the empty space under the last row to select from the bottom up, and click that empty space to clear the selection.
  • Right-click a shot for Delete Shot, Duplicate Shot and Reveal in File Browser. Inside a selection the first two count it, as in Delete 3 Shots.

Selected rows keep their color while you type in the detail panel, so a selection never looks lost.

Filter the list

The filter box above the shot list hides shots that do not match. Every term you type has to match, case does not matter, and nothing you type can produce an error: a half-finished term searches as plain text until you finish it.

You type It means
dragon fx Both words, each found anywhere
"dragon takeoff" That exact phrase
-dragon Exclude anything matching dragon
tag:fx fx in the tags only
-company:acme Exclude that company's shots
rating:3 Rated three stars or more. Unrated shots never match.
/drag.n/ A regular expression
A filter typed live, narrowing 85 shots to 6, then swapped for a rating filter

A plain word searches the name, tags, every field, the notes and the video's path together. To look in one place, put a scope in front of the term:

Scope Looks in
name: the shot's name
tag: or tags: its tags, one tag at a time
project:, company:, role:, year: that field
asset: or assets: the Assets field
notes: the notes
source: the video's full path, so part of a folder name works
any field id that field, as in software:maya

A regular expression can be scoped too, as in tag:/^fx$/. A regular expression that is not valid searches as plain text.

A word followed by a colon is always read as a scope, even when no field has that id; note:fix looks in a field called note and finds nothing, where notes:fix finds your note. Something that does not start with a letter stays plain text: 1:30 searches for 1:30.

Terms combine freely: rating:4 tag:creature -project:"Old Reel" flyover. The same query language works in a reel's shot picker.

Note

The filter hides shots. It never deletes them, a hidden shot still counts in its video's header, and the filter is not saved with the file. It does set what Filtered / visible shots exports; see Export shots.

Undo

Each change to a shot selects file is one undo step, and a batch across many shots, such as detecting shots, importing clips or deleting several, is one step rather than one per shot. Edit › Undo names the step, as in Undo Delete 3 Shots, and undoing brings back the selection too. Each tab keeps its own history of up to 200 steps, cleared when a file is opened into it.

In a text box, Ctrl+Z undoes your typing first. In a number box it undoes the last change to the shots.