Hi, Community!
I wanted to pick your collective brain and see if anyone has created a workflow/approach to handling the short films related to features (generally included as bonuses on the home releases).
The simplest example is Pixar releases. Every Pixar film has an animated short film presented prior to the feature presentation upon theatrical release. This animated short film is always included on the home release as a bonus feature. Naturally, this is one of the items I will copy and encode as part of the workflow when handling these feature films.
The Movie DB and IMDB will, generally, have these short films in their systems, so you can get a fully populated set of metadata when you include these as a stand-alone movie in the Plex directories. It’s cool to see their poster and the full Plex presentation for the short films in the dashboard and respective libraries.
Last night, I experimented with creating a /Movies/Feature Film (YEAR)/Shorts directory and placing the related shorts within. Because the Shorts directory is handled in a special manner, it is indexed differently from any other directory in the library structure. The media within the directory is only displayed as part of the Extras of the feature film, and the item will not appear in the dashboard or associated libraries. This is not unexpected, and I suspect this behavior is the intended design of the directory.
Does anyone know if there’s a way to have your cake and eat it, too? I’d love to see these films associated with the feature film as an Extra (a la the home release), but I’d also like to see them as a stand-alone piece of media in the Plex library. As I said, the posters are great to see as part of the collection, and these shorts are worthy of the full Plex presentation.
A couple of disclaimers (based upon my previous research on the topic). First, I’m not dealing with the Pixar Shorts release (wherein all shorts are treated as stand-alone releases), and I understand many have handled this particular release as a TV show to curate. I think this is a separate issue that could be addressed differently (and in another topic). Second, I do understand the underpinnings of Linux-type symbolic links, and, much like having two copies of the same file, that could be a work-around. However, that’s much less elegant than I’d hope for Plex to handle this common scenario.
I realize this might be a precursor to a feature release request, but I just wanted to tap the community to see if I was missing something obvious.
On that note: I already know that I’ll be putting in my two-cents for a feature where the related animated short to automatically queues prior to showing the animated feature (akin to the cinema previews feature). Even an un-related animated short would be cool. Imagine if you could have a directory of animated shorts wherein one would play (at random) prior to the feature film you’re watching. I’m showing my age here, but I remember when they used to show a Woody Woodpecker, Tom & Jerry, or other short prior to feature at the Drive-In. Let’s face it, this is all about enabling the nostalgia.
Thanks in advance for the feedback!
- Dave
