SmartShorts.studio: your family's memories, told as a story
Bring in the photos and videos of a day, a trip or a lifetime. SmartShorts sorts them into a timeline, recognises the people you name, and makes short reels and films with music and your own words. Every person in a photo decides how they appear.
Three problems it's built around
“Thousands of photos, and nobody sees them.”
Albums become chapters, timelines and 30–60 second reels, so the moments get watched and shared.
“I don't have time to edit.”
It picks the best photos and video shots, sizes them to the length you want, and learns what you keep.
“Not everyone wants to be posted.”
Consent is part of the product: people can approve, ask to be blurred, or be left out, and every shared film carries a receipt.
What's inside
Sharing and collaboration
Circles, presets for each platform, optional shared timelines.
How It Works: Seven Steps
1. Bring your photos in
Paste a shared album link from Google Photos, an iCloud shared album or Dropbox (Coming in the next release). You can also upload from a phone or computer, connect Dropbox, or share albums with your workspace's own studio address (Coming in the next release).
2. Share whole albums, at full size
The studio finds the best moments itself. Originals keep the time and place each photo was taken.
3. Start your family tree
Add yourself and the people closest to you, with how you are related.
4. Find them everywhere
The people you name are recognised across all your albums, and new faces are grouped for you to name.
5. Your timeline
Each event becomes a timeline in its own time zone. You can fix a time or a place, and type the steps of the day.
6. Shorts
Make 30-, 45- or 60-second reels from a storyline, with recommended picks and a title and closing message (Coming in the next release).
7. Films
A story film with chapters, titles and one soundtrack, and a year (or several years) in review (Coming in the next release).
Bring Your Photos In
• Upload from iPhone (the picker opens the Photos library), Android or a computer. HEIC is supported. • Dropbox connection, and pasted image links from your own storage. • Shared album links (Google Photos, iCloud, Dropbox): every photo and video in the album is copied in (Coming in the next release). Apple keeps shared albums at a reduced size, so for originals, use Dropbox or upload. • Duplicates and near-identical bursts are recognised, so the best shot leads.
Family and People
• Family tree. Parents, partners, children, siblings, cousins and friends. Relations are worked out from what you enter. • Search the way you talk: “my mom's brother at the wedding”. • People across albums: someone named once is recognised in every album. • Dates and contacts: birthdays and anniversaries, with a “Coming up” list.
Story and Timeline
• Chapters by time and place, with places named from photo locations. • Steps of the day. Type them as lines, for example “6:40 pm Sparkler, cheers to the evening”. Photos are sorted into the steps. • Your own words, and voice notes transcribed. • Every edit is kept, and earlier versions can be restored.
Reels and Films
• Reels: 30, 45 or 60 seconds, phone (9:16) or TV (16:9). Framing keeps faces in the picture, and transitions follow the mood. • Music: from your own library, cut to the beat. A medley of several songs is possible. • Story films: chapters, title and credits, captions, and chapters inside the file. • Versions: remaking a reel keeps the earlier one as a version. • Recommended picks (Coming in the next release): sized to the length, spread across the event, never two shots of the same moment. Each pick says why, and the picks learn what you keep. • Year in review (Coming in the next release): one film across every album of a year, or several years.
Videos (Coming in the next release)
• Every shot in a video is graded good, passable or poor. The best one becomes its part in reels. • A summary of each video: what happens, who appears and when, and the mood, read from the faces. • Transcripts: every line said, with its time, in English, plus the original language where it comes through clearly. Downloadable as subtitles. • New sound: put a song from your library under a video, lined up with the music that was playing.
Consent and Provenance
• Each person in an album can be approved, blurred or left out, by album or by single photo. Strangers are blurred by default. • People are asked by a private link and can change their mind later. Reels that no longer match their wishes are flagged, and shared links stop working. • Consent is checked again whenever something is viewed, downloaded or shared, not only when it was made. • Receipts and provenance: every output has a receipt. Exports carry a C2PA-format provenance manifest (Unsigned manifest inspectable via open tooling; signed X.509 certificate integration planned). • Safety: content screening on every photo, extra protection for children, and reporting.
Sharing and Collaboration
• Share with circles (family, friends, or your own), with or without download. • Sizes and presets for WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Facebook. • Timeline collaboration, optional per album (Coming in the next release): invite the people who were there with a private link. They add their photos, and nothing is used until the owner approves it. Each photo is credited to the person who added it. • Printed photobooks.
Platform
Isolated workspaces
Each workspace's data is separated at the database level. A photographer can keep one workspace per client (Coming in the next release).
Where photos live
Photos you link from your own storage stay there. Albums you import or upload are kept in your SmartShorts storage until you delete them. We keep face signatures (numbers, not pictures) and the reels you make.
Background work
Rendering and analysis run in a separate worker. Every job has a number and a measured compute time (Coming in the next release).
Sign-in
Two-step sign-in, passkeys and Google sign-in.
Release discipline
Every release passes the full automated test suite and a production build, with a database backup before rollout.
Stack: Python (FastAPI) services, a Next.js web application, PostgreSQL with pgvector.
Principles: What SmartShorts Will Not Do
• It will not post anyone who asked not to be posted. Consent is checked every time something leaves the studio. • It will not put children in public posts. • It will not sell or share your photos or face data. Face signatures are numbers used only to recognise people inside your own workspace. • It will not make a reel you did not ask for. • It will not hide what it changed. Every edit is a version, and the original is never altered.
Place names from GeoNames (geonames.org), licensed CC BY 4.0.