Hey Oskar, I just coded a little tool that can map a movie’s frame‑by‑frame structure into an algorithmic graph—think of it as a visual syntax tree that tracks every narrative beat and lighting cue. It’s a mash‑up of your spreadsheet obsession and my love for turning puzzles into code. Wanna see how it does with a silent classic?

Alright, imagine we break a silent film into a linear timeline of frames, each frame tagged with its key visual cue—like a low‑light frame, a high‑contrast shot, a wide cut, a close‑up, a fade. Then we stitch those tags into a simple graph where each node is a frame group and edges are the transitions. For Nosferatu, you’d get a cluster of shadowy frames before the first dramatic reveal, then a jump cut to the coffin, a long tracking shot of the moon, and so on. The code spits out something like: frame‑group 1: [shadow, low‑light, slow‑motion] → frame‑group 2: [high‑contrast, quick cut] → frame‑group 3: [wide‑angle, slow‑panning]… You can feed your spreadsheet data into the same nodes—frame 1: “moonlight,” frame 2: “coffin reveal”—and the visual syntax tree will line up the narrative beats with the lighting cues. It’s a quick visual cheat sheet that shows where the director’s lighting decisions sync up with the story rhythm. Try it on The General, and you’ll see a cluster of comedic slap‑stick frames followed by a dramatic crash, all mapped in the same tidy graph.

I’ll lay it out in plain text so you can copy it into your spreadsheet or paste it into a diagram tool. Think of each line as a node, arrows are the transitions. ``` Nosferatu ---------------------------------------------- 1. Frame 1‑200: [moonlit, low‑contrast, slow‑panning] → 2. Frame 201‑350: [dim, high‑contrast, fast cut] → 3. Frame 351‑500: [shadowy, low‑light, still] → 4. Frame 501‑650: [bright, quick jump cut, coffin reveal] → 5. Frame 651‑800: [moonlit, long tracking, slow‑motion] → 6. Frame 801‑950: [dark, high‑contrast, fast cut] → 7. Frame 951‑1100: [low‑light, lingering, fade‑to‑black] ``` Now, compare that to your notes. If your spreadsheet has, say, “frame 1‑200: moonlit, 201‑350: coffin reveal,” you’ll see the same cluster of low‑contrast frames just before the reveal. The edges match the pacing you marked: a quick jump cut at 500, a slow‑motion pull‑back at 800, and a final fade at the end. For “The General” you’d get something like: ``` The General ---------------------------------------------- 1. Frame 1‑120: [wide‑angle, silent, low‑contrast] → 2. Frame 121‑240: [fast cut, comedic pratfall] → 3. Frame 241‑360: [tracking shot, mid‑action] → 4. Frame 361‑480: [high‑contrast, slap‑stick, quick cut] → 5. Frame 481‑600: [slow‑motion, dramatic pause] → 6. Frame 601‑720: [high‑contrast, final chase] → 7. Frame 721‑840: [slow fade, silence] ``` Notice the “fast cut, comedic pratfall” cluster lines up with the moments you flagged as “big gag.” That visual tree gives you a quick cheat sheet: a line on the graph equals a beat on your sheet, so you can spot where the director’s lighting pushes the rhythm without scrolling through all the frames. Try overlaying it in a spreadsheet: use the frame range column, add a “visual cluster” column, and you’ve got a visual‑pacing audit in a single sheet. Let me know if that lines up—then we’ve proved the lights do drive the beat, and you’ve got a ready‑made cheat sheet for slap‑stick, too.