Overview

Shot Logger logs shots from DVDs and other digital video sources. It stores a frame capture of each shot and records the time code of the start of the shot in the video. It also processes that time code to determine the length of individual shots, as well as calculating several statistics for those lengths — including average shot length and standard deviation.

Shot Logger was original intended for film and television students/scholars who wish to analyze visual style in detail, and who might want to do some basic statistical analysis of editing. In the latter regard, it was inspired by CineMetrics. What Shot Logger adds to CineMetrics is the ability to attach images, frame captures, to the statistical data.

Shot Logger relies on two other, open-source applications: Videolan VLC media player and Gallery. The VLC media player facilitates the capturing of frames and Gallery, a web-based photo album organizer, handles the uploading and organization of images.

How to Prepare Images

1. Use the free Videolan VLC media player to capture images. Shot Logger only works with version 0.9 and higher of VLC media player!
2. Specific, step-by-step instructions are available here.

Labeling scheme for SL Gallery Items

Program-level album

1. Program "name": shortened version of the name, with no articles
2. Program "title" (articles last)
   1. Enclose in [i]...[/i]
3. Summary: program title
4. Keywords: program title, no articles
5. Description: optional

Episode-level album

1. Episode "name"
   1. No quotation marks here as it befuddles MySQL/HTML.
   2. Episode's original air date, if known (YYYYMMDD)
      1. If no air date, then episode season+number, with no space.
         1. E.g., 0205
2. Title: Program "title" (articles last)
3. Summary: ep title plus program title
   1. E.g., "Captain Salty and the Submarine" episode from [i]The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet[/i].
4. Keywords: program title, no articles
5. Description: ep title, program title, plus original broadcast date, if known.
   1. E.g., "Captain Salty and the Submarine" episode from [i]The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet[/i]. Original broadcast 10 October 1957.

Individual Items

1. Program "name": shortened version of the name, with no articles
2. Program "title" (articles last)
   1. Enclose in [i]...[/i]
   2. For sub-albums below level of program title: use episode title, if known
3. Episode's original air date, if known (YYYYMMDD)
   1. If no air date, then episode season+number, with no space.
      1. E.g., 0205
4. Summary: ep title plus program title
   1. E.g., "Captain Salty and the Submarine" episode from [i]The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet[/i].
5. Keywords: program title, no articles
6. Description: ep title, program title, plus original broadcast date, if known.
   1. E.g., "Captain Salty and the Submarine" episode from [i]The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet[/i]. Original broadcast 10 October 1957.

Upload Images to the SL Gallery

1. If this is a theatrical film or the first episode of a TV program to be uploaded, create a root-level Gallery album for it.
2. If necessary, process the images with Photoshop or another graphics program so that they look okay.
   1. In Photoshop, I recommend using the Deinterlace filter and perhaps auto-levels. Plus, if you created PNG files, you must convert them to JPEG.
3. Upload the images.
   1. There are numerous ways to do this in Gallery, but the easiest seems to be Gallery Remote.
4. Each theatrical film or TV episode needs a new album, with these metadata:
   1. Name = The name of this item on your hard disk (must be unique). Use episode date, if it's a TV program:
      • E.g., 19990121 or theatrical film title.
   2. Title = Title of the ep or the theatrical film. No quotation marks!
      • E.g., The One With Chandler's Work Laugh Part 1.
   3. Summary = longer description of the item, with formatting:
      • E.g., "Captain Salty and the Submarine" episode from [i]The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet[/i].
   4. Description: longest description of the item. Quotations marks are recommended; square brackets become HTML code.
      • E.g., "The One With Chandler's Work Laugh" episode, part 1, of [i]Friends[/i]. Originally broadcast 21 January 1999.

How to Process Images

1. Go to the Shot Logger Administration page.
2. Under Import a Gallery Album, choose an album for either a TV episode or a theatrical film. A list of all items in the album, along with a form for Shot Logger Title Data, will display.
3. Provide data to be attached to the Shot Logger title for these items.
   1. Quotation marks should not be used in any titles.
   2. The Internet Movie Database ID can be found by looking up the title and then examining the URL for the TV program or film. Titles start with the letters, "tt". For example:
      http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044230/
      In this URL, the IMDb ID is tt0044230.
   3. Dates for TV episodes must be in this format: YYYY-MM-DD. E.g., 1957-10-04 for 4 October 1957. Dates for movies must be the release year — e.g., 2007.
   4. Click Insert Data Now to begin the import process. This will take you to the Import Results page.
4. But you're not quite finished. Although the frame captures have been imported, we have not yet done the statistical analysis of them. Scroll to the bottom of the Results page and click Proceed to the listings for the Shot Logger Title.
5. On the shot list page, scroll to the bottom and check the Data for SL Title form. If all is copasetic, click the Update record button.