SmartLog is a free camera report app for film crews that was built by 3D Film Parts. It allows users to log takes as they shoot, and the finished report then writes itself.
It is completely free to use, and like a lot of new software coming out, it doesn’t require an account or a subscription. 3D Film Parts told me that they have already had 3,090 downloads and launches so far, across 51 public builds. Every feature in SmartLog was asked for by a working filmmaker and credited to them by name on a changelog anyone can read.
Here is what is currently available in the Beta version
There are 19 camera department calculators. Depth of field, field of view, sensor match, exposure match, flicker-safe shutter, ND and stops, anamorphic desqueeze, camera geometry, slow motion, timelapse, dolly speed, timecode arithmetic, timecode drift, offload time, production storage, will we make wrap, rig power, battery rotation.
A generic calculator lets you type the sensor, the lens, the stop, and the frame rate every time. In SmartLog, the buttons across the top say USE THE A CAMERA and USE THIS TAKE. They also all work with nothing filled in, so a 2nd AC standing on somebody else’s set can open one and type four numbers.
There are also 87 camera bodies and 575 recording modes, transcribed from the manufacturers’ own documents. Every figure names the document, the revision, the page, and the date it was read. The ALEXA 35 ProRes rates are ARRI’s own, not Apple’s reference rates scaled by pixel count, which run 13 to 28 percent low.
SmartLog reads the actual file list off the card, or the CSV that came back from the DIT, and shows you exactly where the log and the media disagree. It finds the clip nobody logged, which is the expensive one. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is hashed, and nothing writes into a take without a preview first, and one undo after.
Users can paste or import the shot list you already have, then see the planned setup beside the setup that was actually used. It reads “changed from plan”, never “wrong”, because a DP changing a lens on the floor is the job.
A camera 8 frames out from 13:42 until the 15:06 rejam used to mean opening 27 takes and retyping. With SmartLog, you can pick the camera, the range, and the offset, then see every take that would move and what it would move to, then move them. Drop-frame aware, crosses midnight properly.
Also in there: Silverstack, Drylab, Resolve, Premiere and Final Cut exports; two-device sync that keeps both answers when they conflict instead of quietly picking one; separate home screens for 2nd AC, loader, 1st AC, DIT and read only; Ghost Frame, which overlays a reference frame on the live camera so you can match a setup weeks later; star ratings; night shoots that stay on the right date; and the whole app in Spanish as well as English.
