How to create a text file of shots used

StoryFolder — 2026-09-02

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

Last updated: 1 September 2026.

The documentary is finished and the producers need to know which shots came from somewhere else, so they can pay for them. Import the delivered video into StoryFolder and it detects the shots, one thumbnailed row each, carrying an elapsed in and out and a duration. You create the columns the record needs: Source, Rights holder, Archive ref, Licence, Restrictions, Release form, Cleared. Mark the shots that are not yours and export those rows as an XLSX, a CSV and a PDF.

StoryFolder finds the shots by looking at the rendered video, which is why it works on a delivered file with no project and no relinking, and it is also why provenance is something a person types: there is no licence lookup, expiry tracking or clearance sign-off behind the fields. Detection is an algorithm, and a good one, but a dissolve changes too gradually to register as a cut, so the boundaries are worth a look before you export.

What should a clearance shot log record?

Enough for a licensor to find the clip in their own catalogue, and enough for a producer to see what was used without opening the video. In practice that is a source, a reference the licensor recognises, the terms, and the current status.

Release form is not a hypothetical. Across 813 boards from 295 paying customers, one customer tracks release-form status per shot, which is this pattern already running on real work.

Pick Dropdown over Text wherever a value repeats. Twelve rows reading Harrowfield Archive and one reading harrowfield archive with a trailing space is a filter that quietly drops a shot you owe money on, and the dropdown cannot be typo'd. The type also decides what you get in Excel: a Checkbox arrives as a real boolean and a Rating as an integer, so both sort and filter cleanly, while a Tag field arrives as a JSON array literal in the cell, brackets and quotes included, like ["UK","Broadcast"].

None of these fields ship by default. A new board opens with a treatment-shaped notes category, and you create your own fields in whichever of the six types fits: Text, Number, Tag, Dropdown, Checkbox and Rating. Custom fields and the spreadsheet export are both Pro.

You do not need a duration field. The sheet already carries the start, the end and the length of every row it writes.

How do you mark the shots that came from somewhere else?

Import the delivered file, let shot detection run, create the metadata fields and correct the boundaries. The pillar article walks through that pass, and it is the same whether the sheet ends up with rights columns or VFX ones. A clearance pass differs in one way that changes how you work: a feature-length cut runs to hundreds of shots and the record concerns only the ones that are not yours, so most of the board is something you scroll past.

Select the archive shots. Cmd-click or Ctrl-click adds shots that are not next to each other, Shift-click takes a run. Set Source across the whole batch in one keystroke run, then type the Archive ref per shot, since that is the one value that differs every time.

Then favourite the selection and set the export to favourites only. A search or a filter on the board narrows the export as well; favourites are what you reach for when the set has to stay put after you clear the search.

The boundaries on a marked row are what a licensor bills against. Elsewhere a boundary a few frames out is cosmetic; here it is the length of a clip on an invoice. Split or merge until each marked row covers the clip you are declaring and nothing either side of it. Notes are keyed to frame numbers rather than to shots, so correcting a boundary afterwards keeps the values you already typed: mark first, tidy the edges after.

The limit of a marking pass is the cut you never look at: an archive clip in the back half of a row you left unfavourited as your own footage. A missed boundary inside a shot you marked shows up as a wrong duration, which someone will query; inside a shot you did not mark it shows up as nothing at all, which is the one that reaches a producer. Favouriting scopes the boundary work to the shots you already know about and cannot surface the ones you do not. Where the exposure justifies a second look, raise the sensitivity slider a step before you mark anything, as a one-time discovery pass. The slider re-cuts the whole board, so it is not something to reach for once the marking and the edges are done.

The favourites-only output is renumbered from one, so Shot-1.png is your first archive shot rather than the first shot of the film. If a row has to be cited by number in a letter, put that number in a field of your own rather than relying on the export order.

How do thumbnails reduce clearance work?

A picture in the row means whoever is checking the list can identify a clip without going back to the video and finding the timecode. That was the request in a 2020 r/editors thread from someone at a post house: "Now we've started working with some new folks on our clearance team, and they're demanding our shot sheets have thumbnails for each clip. This has the potential to turn what is normally several seconds of work into several hours of work for an editor or AE. No bueno." The tool they remembered doing it well, Final Print, had gone unmaintained for years and only ever worked with FCP7. "Doesn't have to be free, we will gladly spend however much is necessary to save our team hours of manual labor."

In StoryFolder the thumbnail is a 200 px-wide PNG anchored into the Frame column of the XLSX, one per row, provided the Images export is switched on in the same job. What matters for a clearance list is which frame it is: a thumbnail chosen from the middle of an archive clip identifies it, one grabbed off a fade does not, and the frame is yours to choose.

Send the XLSX to the person checking the footage and the CSV to whoever is filing it: same rows, no pixels in the second, openable anywhere.

What does the exported archive usage report contain?

One folder, written by a single export job:

Your fields become columns, sitting between the thumbnail and the timings. The timings are elapsed from the first frame of the file you imported, not source timecode; the sibling article on exporting a shot list with durations covers every column and the arithmetic.

Two absences shape the schema. Video-level fields stay on the project by design, so anything describing the whole programme, the title, the delivery, the licence period covering all of it, belongs in the filename or the covering email rather than in a field. And there is no shot-number column: the number reaches the sheet through Filename, as Shot-1.png, which needs Images on.

The storyboard PDF is the version to send to someone who will read it rather than sort it. Each card carries the thumbnail, the fields with their values printed in full, and a timecode to the frame under the picture.

What still has to be done by a person?

Recognising the clip, finding who owns it, reading the terms and deciding that a use is settled. StoryFolder holds the record and carries it into a document; the judgement in each column is yours, and so is every fact in it.

The join to the licensor is the part that reliably costs time. On Creative COW in June 2009, someone who had just finished a documentary put it plainly: "I need to compile an Archive Usage report for the Producers so that they can pay for what they've used." The output they had was "very difficult to decipher and 'marry' to the BATCH list." That is why Archive ref earns its column. Type the licensor's own ID into the row while you still have the clip on screen and the two lists line up on a key both sides recognise, instead of on a description someone has to interpret.

This records what you used. Whether you may use it is a question for the people holding the contracts.

Where does the rights record itself live?

In your licences, your invoices and your signed release forms, wherever you keep those. The shot log is the index into them: Licence and Archive ref are pointers, and Cleared is a status you maintain by hand as the paperwork comes back. StoryFolder does no storage management and tracks no drives, so the documents themselves stay in whatever system already holds them.

FAQ

Does StoryFolder identify stock or archive footage automatically? No. It detects where the shots are; a person records the source and the archive reference.

Is there a built-in licence field? No. Licence is a field you create yourself, as Text or as a Dropdown of the agreements in play.

Can I mark a shot as cleared? Yes. Make Cleared a Checkbox, and it exports as a real boolean you can filter on in Excel.

Can the spreadsheet show a picture of each shot? Yes, in the XLSX. Each row carries a 200 px-wide PNG in the Frame column, provided the Images export is switched on in the same job.

Do my notes appear in the PDF? Yes. The storyboard PDF prints the selected per-shot fields in full, with a timecode to the frame under each thumbnail.

Can StoryFolder work out what the footage will cost? No. There are no rates, and nothing connects a field to money. The sheet tells you what was used and for how long, and the pricing happens where you already price work.

Does it track when a licence expires? No. There are no expiry rules or reminders. Cleared and Release form are statuses you update yourself.

Can I export only the shots I marked as archive? Yes. Favourite them and set the export to favourites only; the XLSX, the CSV and the stills then contain only those rows, renumbered from one.

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