The editor’s picks

A recap reel is a loop between the planner and an editor. The planner cuts a first reel from the analysis. The editor watches it, marks the shots they want and the ones they don’t, and the planner cuts again. The editor’s picks always win. No rule the planner follows (fair share, framing, rhythm, coverage) overrides a pick.

The pages

focalcut reel serve "/footage/Show 2026"        # http://localhost:8765/

Sources (review/sources.html) lists every export clip in a big player over a wide, zoomable timeline. The timeline shows a filmstrip, the moments the planner found and where each reel uses the clip. Mark as many in-out selections per clip as you like. In portrait it also shows the planner’s crop and takes focal points you set. The Picks view plays the whole cut, landscape or portrait, with your picks in place.
Review (review/<fmt>.html) shows one frame per shot of the rendered reel. Each frame has a copyable picks line and a Scrub source button that opens the clip it came from.

Served, the pages save focalcut/reel/picks.json on every change and keep the previous file as picks.json.bak. Opened as plain files, they keep changes in the browser and offer Copy and Download.

picks.json

The keys are export file names. Times are in that export file’s own timeline.

{
  "C2125": {
    "add": ["1:12.40-1:15.10", "5:32.9"],
    "ban": ["0:00-0:20"],
    "prefer": ["0:41-0:46"],
    "more": 2,
    "open": "1:18.6-1:22.8",
    "end": "6:01.0-6:05.5",
    "portrait": [[332.9, 0.50, 0.42], [335.3, 0.55, 0.42]]
  },
  "C1984-05_couple": {"ban": ["all"]},
  "_note": "keys starting with _ are notes"
}

Key	What it does
`add`	An in-out range is one shot: from its in-point, for its length. A single time is an extra shot there.
`ban`	Keeps every shot out of the range; `"all"` keeps the clip out.
`prefer`	Moments in the range rank up by 1.0. If none was found there, one is made in the middle.
`more`	More shots from this clip: its fair-share discount is divided by 1 + `more`.
`open` / `end`	The in-out the reel opens on (under the event’s logo) or ends on.
`portrait`	Portrait focal points, `[time, x, y]` with x and y from 0 to 1 of the frame. The strip centres on each point for 0.5 s either side.

reel.json "picks" takes the same shape and merges over picks.json.

How picks are kept

Once each, at real speed. An in-out pick plays exactly once, at least as long as marked. It may run in slow motion but is never sped up, and no other shot uses its footage.
A picked clip gives only its picks. The editor chose its best part, so the rest of that clip is banned. reel.json plan.<fmt>.only_picks: false keeps the rest in play between the picks.
A pick over a ban wins. The plan log reports it as a conflict.
The pick check. After every plan, pick_report lists any pick that is missing, short, sped up, doubled, or has another shot over its footage. A clean plan prints nothing.

When there are more picks than reel

An editor can pick more footage than the song holds. The planner then condenses the picks:

plan.<fmt>.pick_hold (beats): a pick longer than this is cut down to its best pick_hold beats, scored on the scrub’s windows. The editor chose the stretch; the planner chooses the best part of it.
plan.<fmt>.pick_share (default 0.5): the share of the reel’s beats the picks may take. The rest is the planner’s own footage, for coverage and pacing.
plan.<fmt>.pick_clip_share (default 1.5): how far above an even share one clip’s picks may go. Raise it when the editor’s picks bunch in a few clips; otherwise those clips lose picks to the cap.

A pick-heavy reel, as a profile:

"profiles": {
  "picks-heavy": {"plan": {
    "landscape": {"pick_hold": 4, "pick_share": 0.9, "pick_clip_share": 4.0},
    "portrait":  {"pick_hold": 4, "pick_share": 0.9, "pick_clip_share": 4.0}}}
},
"use": ["picks-heavy"]

On Electric Nation 2026, with 132 picks bunched in a few long clips, this took the landscape reel from 90 to 127 picks kept.

Review rounds

reject (reel.json): stretches a review turned down, in picks syntax by export file. The planner treats them as bans, but they live apart from the editor’s own picks.json.
refill (reel.json, true = the last cut rendered, or a plan file name): re-cut by keeping every shot of an earlier plan and moving only those whose footage is banned now. Each moves along its own clip first, else onto another clip’s footage that passes the rules. A review round then replaces only what was rejected, instead of reshuffling half the cut into shots nobody has looked at.

focalcut reel run "/footage/Show 2026" --steps plan,render,xml,review

Profiles

reel.json "profiles" are named rule sets. The main reel, or any cut, stacks them with "use", in order, then applies its own keys. "footage" and "ban" add up across profiles, "plan" merges per format, and any other key is taken from the last profile that sets it.

"profiles": {
  "no-night": {"footage": ["!night"]},
  "short": {"length": 90}
},
"cuts": {
  "day": {"formats": ["landscape", "portrait"], "use": ["no-night", "short"]}
}

Keep an editor’s standing rulings as profiles. The next event’s reel can then reuse them by name.

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