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Interest points

An interest point marks a frame worth keeping. They exist because a reel often cannot afford a shot's full length, and the first few seconds are rarely the part you wanted to show.

Press P to add one at the playhead.

How it works

With a shot selected, P adds a point to that shot. Several points build a curve across the shot describing which parts matter. When a reel later needs that shot shorter than you marked it, the trim keeps the marked range instead of blindly keeping the head.

With nothing selected, P marks the source instead, and the point is drawn as a blue diamond on the source timeline. Source points let you watch a film straight through, flagging moments as they go past, and define shots afterward.

There is only ever one set of points, and it belongs to the source. A shot's points are whichever of them currently fall inside its in and out points. That is a live answer, not a copy taken when the shot was made: drag the shot's edge out and it takes in the next point, drag it back and it lets that point go. Two shots overlapping the same moment both show it, and splitting a shot needs no bookkeeping at all.

Three points dropped on the source and the middle one pulled down, then a shot created over two of them, its edge extended to take the third, the last point nudged down, and the edge pulled back to release it

What this means when you

  • ...create a shot over source points: it takes a copy of the points inside it. They become the shot's own, and the source keeps its diamonds.
  • ...drag a shot's edge outward: points that come into range are absorbed. Drag back and they are released again.
  • ...split a shot: each half keeps the points that fall inside it. Nothing is lost and nothing is duplicated.
  • ...overlap two shots: both contain the points in the overlap, and both show them.
  • ...shorten a shot after marking points: a point outside the new range stays where it is rather than moving with the edge.
Containment, not references

A point belongs to whatever range contains it, evaluated live. Shots do not hold references to source points, and source points do not know which shots collected them. This is why there is no shared mutable state to get out of sync, and why the answer to "which points does this shot have" is always just "the ones inside it".