Skip to content

Detect shots

Shotwork can find the cuts in a source and propose a shot for each stretch between them. On footage with clean hard cuts this does most of the marking for you. On dissolves, whip pans and long takes it does not, and you mark by hand.

Steps

  1. Select the source, or right-click its row in the shot list.
  2. Choose Shots › Detect Shots… (Ctrl+Shift+D), or Detect Shots… from that right-click menu.
  3. Wait for Analysis complete. Adjust and add the shots you want.
  4. Set Sensitivity. Higher finds more cuts, including ones that are not there.
  5. Set Minimum Shot Length in frames. Anything shorter is discarded, which is how flash frames and cut-on-action false positives get filtered out.
  6. Turn on Only the current playback range to detect within the range rather than the whole source.
  7. Read the Result line. It re-answers as you adjust, so you can tune before committing.
  8. Choose Add Shots.
The Result line re-answers as Sensitivity and Minimum Shot Length change

What happens

Every proposed shot is added to the shot list as an ordinary shot, unnamed and untagged. They are not special and not linked to the detection. Delete the ones you do not want, adjust the ones that are close, and name the rest.

Tip

Detection is a starting point, not an answer. Running it with a conservative Sensitivity and a generous Minimum Shot Length, then splitting the few shots it merged, is usually faster than cleaning up an over-detected list.

When detection runs two shots together

A missed cut leaves one shot band covering two shots. You do not need to detect again. Park the playhead on the first frame of the second shot and press S: the band splits there, into two shots that meet at that frame. Stepping one frame at a time (Left and Right) across the cut is the quickest way to be sure you are on the first frame of the new shot rather than the last frame of the old one.

  • Organize shots for splitting, deleting and reordering what detection produced.