ShotDeck – Collaborative Searchable Online Library of Movie Images by Lawrence Sher, ASC

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by Jakub HanFebruary 11^th, 2020

ShotDeck is a new collaborative online library of movie images created by cinematographer Lawrence Sher, ASC. The library is fully searchable as each image is tagged with over 50 keywords. There are categories based on the genre of the movie, lighting, frame size, type of scene, etc. Created decks of images can be shared with other members. ShotDeck is now accepting free registrations for beta testing.

ShotDeck movie images library. Source: ShotDeck

Lawrence Sher is a US cinematographer from New Jersey. He is known for his work on Joker (2019), The Hangover (2009) and Garden State (2004). Since 2012, Sher is a member of the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC). He is the man behind the online library of movie images called ShotDeck. What is it about?

ShotDeck – Collaborative Online Library of Movie Images

ShotDeck is a time-saving resource and collaborative professional tool that helps anyone working in the film, media, and advertising industries. It should help people easily create decks of still movie images for every stage of a project – pitch, prep, or production. As its creator claims, ShotDeck is the largest library of high definition fully searchable movie images in the world.

Each image is tagged in over 20 categories with over 50 keywords. Every image has been hand-tagged with everything imaginable and relevant. Not just the obvious things visible in the image, like a car or gun, but also everything about the image including lighting, location, frame size, composition, and even the emotions on a person’s face. Every image in the ShotDeck library is BluRay quality and color correct.

ShotDeck movie images library. Source: ShotDeck

There are categories based on the genre of the movie, lighting, frame size, lens size, the camera used, color, time of day, location, and so on. Users can search the site by keyword and then narrow the results with custom filters by selecting one or more categories. After finding the right shots, the created decks can be shared with other users to start collaborations.

ShotDeck movie images library. Source: ShotDeck

Currently, there are over 130,000 images from over 1,400 films on ShotDeck and that number grows constantly as the ShotDeck team adds more images. They claim they will be adding new films as they are released as well as cataloging the most important films from the past century. If there is a film you need images from but don’t see it, you can just ask the ShotDeck team and they will work on adding that film to the library of images in the future.

ShotDeck movie images library. Source: ShotDeck

ShotDeck is currently running at its beta version. It is possible to sign up to ShotDeck for free and help them with beta testing. There is no information whether this will become a paid service in the future.

What do you think about ShotDeck? Did you register yourself already? Do you sometimes need still movie images for your work? Let us know in the comments underneath the article.