Export Shot List With Original File Name

StoryFolder — 2026-09-02

Part of: How to make a shot list from a video that already exists

Last updated: 1 September 2026.

The cut is locked and an artist is awaiting a list of shots that need work. StoryFolder builds that list from the rendered video. Each shot is thumbnailed and carries an elapsed in and out, a frame range, and whatever columns you decide the job needs, such as VFX, Shot ID, Status and Complexity. The one thing it cannot give you is the original camera filename, because a rendered file does not carry one. Mark the shots that need work, and export only those as a spreadsheet, a folder of stills and one MP4 per shot.

What can a rendered video give a VFX artist?

Everything except the thing the title asks for. Every shot in order, thumbnailed, with an elapsed in and out, first and last frame numbers as integers and one column per field you added. For briefing an artist that trade is usually acceptable; the filenames matter to whoever pulls the media.

The request in this page's title was posted by Gutbucket62 to an undated thread on Adobe's own community forum: "I need to create a pull list of shots for our VFX artist with original file names." The workaround was to duplicate the sequence, strip out every clip without VFX, export an EDL and copy the filenames across by hand. RobShultz, carrying Adobe's Community Expert badge, replied that "Adobe's solution seems correct." Gutbucket62's summary: "Adobe offered no solution at all."

How do you mark only the VFX shots?

Import the rendered cut, and a local .mov or .mp4 works great, then let detection run, then create the custom metadata fields your workflow needs. Custom fields and the spreadsheet export are both Pro. The pillar article covers that pass in full. A working set for a turnover is Shot ID as text, Status as a dropdown holding your own states, Complexity as a rating, and Elements as a number for how many passes a shot needs. What is particular to a turnover is everything after that: you are marking a minority of the board and shipping only those rows.

Scroll the board and select the shots that need work. The artist's list usually comes from the edit, so you are locating shots you already know about rather than discovering them. Cmd-click or Ctrl-click adds shots that are not next to each other, and Shift-click appends a run of them. With several selected, type into a field once and the value lands on every one, so Status goes to Awaiting brief in one pass and the per-shot detail gets written only where it differs. Favourite the selection, then set the export itself to favourites only. A search or a filter you have on the board narrows the export too, so either route works; favourites are the one that survives you clearing the search.

A favourites-only export is renumbered from one, so Shot-1.png is your first VFX shot rather than the first shot of the cut — which is exactly why a Shot ID column exists. Type one only where a code has to be quoted back to you, on the handful of shots going into a pipeline that already has names for them. There is no auto-numbering field, so filling that column is one keystroke run per shot and batch-fill cannot help you: the whole point of an ID is that no two are the same. Everywhere else, let Filename carry the position and leave the column empty.

The useful consequence of marking a minority is that you do not need the whole board to be correct. Fix boundaries only on the shots you are sending. A soft transition into a VFX shot needs a split so the in point is where the artist expects it; the establishing wide forty seconds later can stay however the detector left it. Notes are keyed to frame numbers, so correcting a boundary afterwards does not cost you the values you already typed.

Can you send each shot as a clip?

Yes. Turn on Clips and you get one Shot-N.mp4 per favourited shot, cut from the original at source resolution. If the source file has gone offline the export falls back to the preview copy and the finished job says that it did, so a reduced-resolution clip never reaches an artist unannounced.

The in and out of each clip are the shot boundaries themselves. There is no handle setting, and nothing pads the cut by a specified number of frames, so a clip starts on the first frame of the shot and ends on the last. If the artist wants lead-in and lead-out, merge the shot with its neighbours before exporting: a merged section exports as one row, one still and one clip covering the whole range. That gives context, not handles: the extra frames belong to the neighbouring shots, and frames that sit outside the rendered cut are not in the file at all.

What should the handoff package contain?

One export writes all of it into a single folder:

Lead with the XLSX, because the thumbnail sits in the row next to the fields. Its timecodes are elapsed from the first frame of the file you imported, not source timecode, so give the artist the Shot ID you typed as the identifier to quote back at you, with the First Frame and Last Frame integers alongside it; the sibling article on exporting a shot list with durations goes through every column and the arithmetic. If a timecode to the frame has to be printed on the page, the storyboard PDF prints one under every shot.

Call the result a work order rather than a pull list when you send it.

When do you need an EDL instead?

When the list has to survive a conform. The two documents answer different questions, and a turnover of any size usually wants both.

For the right-hand column, export an EDL or XML from your NLE and run it through something that reads a sequence. Sequence Clip Reporter is the one Ant Falcon recommended on that Adobe thread, saying "we use it for shotlists with stills, timecode, clip names and filepaths all the time during the finish process for movie trailers etc." EditingTools.io's Edit Shot List does the EDL and XML conversion in a browser. Check current pricing at the source.

StoryFolder imports and exports none of those formats, and the shot list export is one-way. It is the picture-side document, and it stands next to the conform data rather than replacing it.

FAQ

Can I put a VFX checkbox on every shot? Yes. Checkbox is one of six custom field types, alongside Text, Number, Tag, Dropdown and Rating.

Do the exported shots keep their original shot numbers? No. A favourites-only export is renumbered from one, so Shot-1.png is the first marked shot. Type a Shot ID field if the numbering has to match something.

Is the timecode in the spreadsheet source timecode? No. It is elapsed time from the first frame of the imported file, HH:MM:SS,mmm, with no reel and no SMPTE frames field.

Can StoryFolder export an EDL, XML, AAF or FCPXML? No, in either direction. The shot list export is one-way, as XLSX and CSV.

Can I add handles to the exported clips? No. Each Shot-N.mp4 runs from the shot's first frame to its last. Merge a shot with its neighbours before exporting if the artist needs lead-in and lead-out.

Does the artist need StoryFolder to open any of this? No. The handoff is an XLSX, a CSV, PNG stills, MP4 clips and a PDF.

← All articles