---
url: https://superduperai.co/library/analyse-once-sidecar-files-metadata-time/
title: Analyse once: sidecar files beside the sources, shooting time from the container
description: The storage rule that makes a long film possible a month later: each clip's shots, frame scores, beats and speech live in a file beside it, and shooting time comes from the container metadata.
category: editing
platforms: [any]
works_with: [claude-code, life2film, ffmpeg]
tags: [analysis, sidecar, metadata, ffprobe, workflow, archive]
difficulty: intermediate
verified: false
created: 2026-11-01
skill: video-edit
---

# Analyse once: sidecar files beside the sources, shooting time from the container

The storage rule that makes a long film possible a month later: each clip's shots, frame scores, beats and speech live in a file beside it, and shooting time comes from the container metadata.

## Prompt

```text
ANALYSIS STORAGE, the checklist

1. For every clip.mp4, write clip.analysis.json beside it: shot boundaries, per-frame or per-segment quality scores, beat positions, speech with word timings, the detector versions used.
2. Shooting time comes from the container: `ffprobe -v error -show_entries format_tags=creation_time -of csv=p=0 clip.mp4`. Never from the file name, never from the file's mtime (copying resets it). Camera clocks drift; write the offset per camera in a trip-level file and apply it, do not edit the sources.
3. Resolve symlinks before writing sidecars: an analysis written into a symlinked subset folder ends up beside the links, not the originals.
4. Never leave a rendered film inside the source folder; the next run treats it as one more clip.
5. A clip is re-analysed only when its hash changes or the detector version does; otherwise read the sidecar.
6. Archive sources and sidecars together, after the films are out, never mid-edit.
7. Keep one short real camera file per device in a verification set, and check the delivered file itself, not only synthetic sources.
```

## Steps

1. Run the analysis over the whole folder once: a shot detector, a frame scorer, a beat tracker and whisper-family STT with word timings. Life2Film Studio does the frame scoring, scene detection and segment ranking on the device; `npm i life2film-engine` gives the beats, shots and frame scores in WASM.
2. Write every result as a sidecar next to its clip, then build the day's text file and the cut from the sidecars, not from the video.
3. A month later, the trip film reads the sidecars of 20 days in seconds instead of re-analysing 20 days of footage.

## Tips

- Two phones on one trip can disagree by minutes; the offset file is what keeps same-place, same-time cutaways honest.
- The sidecar is also the provenance: which model found the shots, which version scored the frames, when.

## Works with

- Claude Code: Runs as a skill or a prompt in the terminal; can read your files and write the result.
- Life2Film: The montage app: analysis, segment scoring and cuts on your device.
- ffmpeg: A terminal command you run yourself.