
Generating a Contact Sheet
Working with Movies
To open a movie, do one of the following:
- Select the Open option from the File menu on the main menubar.
- Drag the desired Movie files from a Finder window and drop them on the MovieBriefs icon in the dock.
MovieBriefs handles movies that are encoded with a modern codec, such a H.264 or Apple ProRes.
Generating a Contact Sheet
When a file is opened, MovieBriefs (by default) will generate a contact sheet using the entire movie duration and a display size of 5 by 5.
While the contact sheet is being generated, MovieBriefs displays a progress indicator at the top of the document window. At any time, you can click the cancel button located next to the progress indicator, to stop generating a new contact sheet.
Controlling Display Size
The Display Size control determines the number of images generated for a contact sheet. Values for this control range from 2 to 20, displaying a grid of 4 to 400 frames.
Working with Time
The Time Range control (along the bottom of the document window) lets you control the portion of the movie used to generate the contact sheet.
Drag the in-time and out-time handles to specify the starting and ending times within the movie to be used.
For finer control of time selection, double-click either the in-time or the out-time handles. The handle you clicked will to turn red indicating Precise Timing Mode.
To navigate in Precise Time Mode, do one of the following:
- Press left-arrow or right-arrow keys to move the selected time indicator forward or backward by a time period of approximately one frame.
- Press the Command-left-arrow or Command-right-arrow keys to move the selected time indicator one second forward or one second backward.
To exit Precise Timing Mode, press the escape key
Frame Timing
Once a contact sheet has been generated, you may see the time associated with each displayed frame by resting the cursor over the image. The time associated with the image will be displayed as a tooltip.