SHOWRUNNER™ QUICKSTART GUIDE

General Principles
The purpose of Showrunner is to help you manage the creation of SHOTS. Shots are constructed of one or more ELEMENTS, which in turn are derived from materials that are usually first recorded in the CODEBOOK or SHIPPING & RECEIVING. These received materials might consist of film negative, digital files, videotape, or DVD.
Showrunner is a powerful tool that helps you keep all the details of Shot creation organized.

Use the buttons
Showrunner has a simple interface of buttons and forms. In most instances, even if you know your way around Filemaker pretty well you will be better off using the buttons to navigate. They take care of page setup and other niceties that will keep you out of trouble and make your workflow smooth.

Sorting
Whenever you are in a list view within Showrunner you'll want to sort the list to organize how you view the data. You may want to sort according to date, for instance, to determine what the latest version of something is.
While Filemaker has it's own sorting command (Records>Sort Records...) Showrunner makes it easier for you: You'll notice that when you drag your cursor over many of the column headings the cursor turns into a pointing hand. This indicates that by clicking that heading you can sort your list by that function!

Finding
You can use the find command by clicking on the little magnifier icon in the upper left of the Showrunner interface. You may, for instance wish to find all the shots that are assigned to a particular artist. Many Showrunner functions have at least one find command embedded in them. Finding and sorting are very powerful commands.

Handy Filemaker Tricks
Although Showrunner itself runs best when you stick to its buttons, there are a handful of Filemaker commands you'll want to familiarize yourself with:
Filemaker modes
Filemaker offers you three viewing modes for any layout: Browse, Find, and Preview. These can be accessed by command(mac)/control(PC) B, F, or U or by utilizing the small pulldown in the lower left of the Filemaker window. BROWSE is the normal mode for viewing and manipulating data. FIND is, well, for finding. And PREVIEW can be thought of as a Print Preview for any layout. You can't manipulate anything in Preview mode.
Accelerated data entry
Lets say you just received a number of items and you want to log them all in to Shipping and Receiving within Showrunner. If they are all similar you can enter a record for the first one and then duplicate that record, (Records>Duplicate Record) changing the relevant details for each duplicate to represent each unique item.
Also, if for instance, you want every record in your found set to have today's date in the "date received" field, do you type the date individually for each record? No, use the Records>Replace Field Contents... command. Simply type today's date into the field of the first record then select Records>Replace Field Contents... to fill all the other records on view with the same data. Warning: Make sure your found set has ONLY the records you wish to replace field contents of.

How do I...?

Set up a new show?
First make sure that you save a backup copy of Showrunner. Databases utilize a different model than the Application/document paradigm used in programs like Microsoft Word. Showrunner, like any Filemaker solution, is a combination database and application. The data and the instructions to run it are all in one pile. Hence there is no SAVE command in Filemaker. Anytime you make a change in a Filemaker document it is AUTOMATICALLY saved. There is no reverting to a previous version unless you specifically "Save a copy as..." at some point.

So what you'll want to do to begin a new show is to make a duplicate of your Showrunner FOLDER, i.e. the folder containing Showrunner and rename it to something like MYSHOW_Showrunner.
It is not recommended that you rename Showrunner itself, especially if you are running a the Standalone version of Showrunner (If you rename the Standalone version of Showrunner the application will not recognize your data).
Then simply double click on the Showrunner file within the MYSHOW_Showrunner folder and begin entering your show information.

Break down and budget a show?
From the Showrunner START page click on the BREAKDOWN & BUDGET button. This takes you into the Financial Section of Showrunner as delineated by the extra green outlined buttons across the upper left of the interface. Press NEW to create a new shot and start filling in data. When you finish with your shot you can hit the DUPLICATE THIS SHOT button if you have another similar shot and then simply add the new information to the duplicate. Continue until you've completed entering all your shots.
If you enter all the estimated costs as well during this process, then, all you need to do is press the BREAKOUTS & OVERHEAD button to enter all your overhead and non-shot-specific costs. When you finish this, hit the BUDGET button and you're ready to print.

Set up a shot?
From the Showrunner START page click on the SHOT tab. Here you can enter shots exactly as you did in the BREAKDOWN & BUDGET page but with more detail. (You can click back to the BREAKDOWN page by hitting the SHOT FINANCIALS button on the SHOT page. ) Click the NEW icon in the upper left of the interface to create a new Shot record. Make sure you give it a sequence (two or three letters usually) and a shot number before you do ANYTHING else. Fill in the fields that are useful. Hit the NEW ELEMENT button to start creating elements. You can enter basic element data here. (the element list automatically sorts according to the number you enter in the LAYER field.) Then, by clicking the small gray arrow to the left of the element you are taken to an element page where you can enter or view more detailed data for that element.

(You'll find this same "list layout"--"detail layout" construction in many of the modules of Showrunner.)

Log materials in?
From the Showrunner START page click on the SHIPPING & RECEIVING button in the command bar. This takes you to the layout of a single shipping and receiving record. Hit the NEW button, select SHIPPING or RECEIVING in the "Coming or Going?" field and begin entering your information for that item. IMPORTANT: if the item you are logging in will be used as part of a shot, make sure that the SLATE field contains unique information that is found in no other record. (Notice that the SENDER OR RECIPIENT field in the upper center is a pulldown that lets you select from all the names in your Showrunner address book. Select a name and the address information is filled in automatically. It's a good idea then to keep your address book up to date as it simplifies data entry here.) You can also click on the LIST VIEW, LIST RECEIVING, or LIST SHIPPING buttons on the Shipping and Receiving page to take you to the Shipping and Receiving LIST layout. There you can sort, find, and analyze your data. Clicking on the small gray arrow to the left of any record takes you to the Shipping & Receiving page for that item.

Set up my schedule?
From the Showrunner START page click on the SCHEDULE button in the command bar. Each shot contains a schedule consisting of blocks representing weeks. You can pull down from any block to select a production phase that you wish to occur in that week. (When you select a phase and then hit the gray REFRESH button, the color of that block changes to a color unique to that phase. So you can see at a glance where all similar phases occur on your schedule.)

If an event needs to happen on a specific DAY of a given week, note that day in the "Actual due date" field beneath that week.

You can enter the starting week date and week number in the headers above the first week. Then hit the CALC button and the rest of the dates will calculate. You can have a schedule of up to 52 weeks spread out over three Schedule pages.

Create a scan sheet?
From the Showrunner START page click on the SCANNING button in the command bar. Let's say you have a conformed roll of negative that has several segments that need to be scanned. After you've created a new ELEMENT record for each of those elements to be scanned, Create a found set of those records by using the Find Marked button on the right of the interface. (You can also use the ELEMENT LIST button/layout to further aid in creation of your found set.) Sort the elements by manipulating the Sort Order field and then clicking its header to sort your list. Notice that if you fill out the Key Code fields, Showrunner automatically figures out the number of frames for each element. The PROJECTOR START and PROJECTOR STOP fields are frame counts from the punch at the head of your negative roll. After you've filled out all the relevant data for the elements, fill out the SCAN PARAMETERS and Roll info in the grey box. Print your sheet.

Add a picture?
The easiest way of adding an image to the "picture" field of a record is to copy and paste a frame from a Quicktime™ movie. In Quicktime Player go to the frame you wish to use, copy to the clipboard. Click on the picture field in Showrunner and paste the image. HINT: If you display the movie at half size in Quicktime player the image you copy will be half size and take up less memory in ShowRunner. This will speed up operations later on when you have a large number of shots and images to sort. WE STRONGLY RECOMMEND IMAGES OF 320 X 240 PIXELS.

Create a Lineup Sheet?
Click the SHOT tab and go to the shot you wish to do a lineup sheet for. Click the lineup sheet button. This takes you to (what else) the Lineup Sheet Layout. You'll notice much of the info such as shot description and element names are already entered if you entered them on the shot or element layouts. This is the place to specify for the artist exactly how a shot goes together.
Each element has a block of ten potential "event cells" that can be described within the timeline. A typical event might be "begin fade out" which you would enter in the "details" portion of a block that is at an appropriate point along the timeline. The dark gray band across the top of the timeline represents the comp counts. The lighter gray band on each element represents the counts for that element. In the Comp count block for our fade out example you would enter the frame at which the event occurs. At a corresponding block of that element you would enter the frame of that element at which the event occurs. The demo version of Showrunner contains illustrative sample data that shows a good way of utilizing this powerful tool.

SPEED FACTOR
Several layouts including the LINE-UP SHEET have a field called speed factor, to account for time re-mapping of an element in line-up instructions. A default of 100% is entered WHEN THE RECORD IS CREATED.
The length of the clip is multiplied by this number to derive the end frame of the clip in the line-up sheet.

Examples:
To convert a 30fps video clip to 24fps for filming this field should contain "80%".
To run at normal speed, this field should contain "100%"
To convert a 24fps clip to 30fps this field should contain "125%"

Create a Shipping Receipt?
Go to Shipping and Receiving and click the LIST VIEW button. Create a found set of those records that represent the materials you are shipping by using the Find Marked button on the right of the interface. Sort the elements by manipulating the Sort Order field and then clicking its header to sort your list. Once your list contains only the items you are shipping in the order you intend click the MAKE SHIPPING RECEIPT button. This takes you (after a brief note about saving your work) to the shipping receipt page. Make sure the "Send to" and "Contact" fields on the top and bottom of the page are properly filled out and then hit the PRINT icon in the interface. (This will print out in PORTRAIT mode.)