Shot ranking
Also known as: merit ordering, clip ranking
Ordering the surviving candidates by importance, from the shot that has to appear down to the ones that merely fill a gap.
Updated
What it means
Selection answers whether a clip is in. Ranking answers how much it matters, and the two are different questions about the same set. One filters; the other sorts what is left.
The ranking is what makes a target length possible. Cutting to ninety seconds means taking from the top until the time is used, which needs an order rather than a set. A set on its own has no top to work down from.
It differs from Shot scoring in purpose. Scoring produces a number per clip; ranking is the ordered list that number implies, with ties broken by something the number cannot see.
How it works in practice
Ranking is done in comparison rather than in isolation. Putting two candidates side by side settles which matters more far faster than scoring each alone. Comparison is how people judge anything.
The top of the list is decided first. Naming the Hero moment fixes the peak, and everything else is ordered relative to that one position rather than to the whole list.
An Inclusion threshold is where the list gets cut. Moving the line up shortens the edit and raises the standard at the same time, which is one decision rather than two separate ones.
What to watch out for
Measured quality and importance are not the same. A technically perfect clip of nothing happening outranks a shaky clip of the moment that mattered, which is where Quality scoring on its own goes wrong.
Ties are where the real decisions are. Four similar attempts at one feature rank almost identically, and Duplicate shot detection rather than the ranking is what resolves a tie of that kind.
The order is not the sequence order. Ranking by merit puts the best first; a finished edit rarely does, which is why Sequence order is a separate step from this one.
How RawClip handles it
Candidates are scored and then ordered, with the ordering deciding what fits inside the requested length. Dramatic arrangement happens after that, so the ranking decides what appears, and the structure then decides where each of those things goes.