reavideo-breakdown

Parse a plain-text shot list into structured shots, timings and cut statistics.

A shot list is the cheapest artifact of video production: one line per cut, usually something like 00:04 wide shot, empty street, slow push in. This library turns that text into data you can sort, validate and diff, which is what you need when a finished video has to be broken back down into its component shots.

No dependencies outside the standard library.

Install

pip install reavideo-breakdown

Usage

from reavideo_breakdown import parse_shotlist, summarize, format_timecode

text = """
00:00-00:04   wide shot, empty street, slow push in
00:04-00:07   close up, hands tying a knot
00:07-00:12   3.5s  drone pull back over the harbour
"""

shots = parse_shotlist(text)
for shot in shots:
    print(shot["index"], format_timecode(shot["start"]), shot["description"])

summarize(shots)

parse_shotlist returns a list of dicts:

summarize adds the numbers editors ask for first: shot count, cuts per minute, average, longest and shortest shot.

Timecodes

from reavideo_breakdown import parse_timecode, format_timecode

parse_timecode("1:02:03")   # 3723.0
format_timecode(3723)       # '01:02:03'

Both mm:ss and hh:mm:ss are accepted; output switches to hh:mm:ss past one hour.

Link

Written for shot breakdown work on finished cuts; the tool this pairs with is Rea Video, which reconstructs a shot list from a delivered video.

License

MIT