A recap editor can preserve every required shot while losing the cause-and-effect order. A small check against a review export can flag those cases before a person watches the first cut. In a fictional mystery, the key mark must appear before the detective tries the door. We also want to know if a required beat disappeared.
This example uses synthetic markers in milliseconds on the edited output timeline and Python’s standard library.
required_order = ('find_notebook', 'key_mark', 'try_door') export_markers_ms = {'find_notebook': 14000, 'try_door': 42000, 'key_mark': 46000} missing = [beat for beat in required_order if beat not in export_markers_ms] out_of_order = [ (before, after) for before, after in zip(required_order, required_order[1:]) if before in export_markers_ms and after in export_markers_ms and export_markers_ms[before] >= export_markers_ms[after] ] print('Missing:', missing) print('Out of order:', out_of_order) Expected output:
Missing: [] Out of order: [('key_mark', 'try_door')] Correct the sequence on the timeline, export again, and run the check with timestamps from the revised export. Then ask a viewer why the detective tried that door. Marker order can catch a broken sequence, but it cannot tell whether a clue is visible long enough to understand. If the story deliberately withholds the reason until later, define that intended sequence in required_order first.
The cover is an illustrative workflow diagram. This article and its synthetic example were generated with AI.
