I'm a little late to this party, but I thought I'd share what I do.
I primarily watch Shorts on my iPad, so solid organization is important to be able to find anything.
In iTunes, I treat each year of Shorts as a "season" of a TV show. (I cheat a smidge and put the 2007 installments into 2008.) Then I mostly number them by release date. Thus "Shy Guy" is the first "episode" of the 2009 Season, "Parade of Aquatic Champions" begins Season 2010, etc. (The
Wikipedia list of RiffTrax is invaluable for this.)
Here's what "Molly Grows Up" looks like in my iTunes:
Name: Molly Grows Up
Artist: RiffTrax Shorts
Album Artist: RiffTrax Shorts
Album: RiffTrax Shorts, Season 2010
Year: 1953
Track Number: 2 of 48
Disc Number: 1 of 1
Genre: Comedy
VIDEOShow: RiffTrax Shorts
Season Number: 2010
Episode Number: 2
OPTIONSMedia Kind: TV Show
Since it's my universe, I made a few nudges:
UNIVERSAL- I trim the final copyright notice from all of them. (Since I'm frequently watching 20+ throughout the day, 20 seconds of periodic "RIFFTRAX: SOME MOVIES HAVE IT COMING..." <etc> is pretty jarring.)
2008- As noted, "Signal 30" and "A Visit to Santa" are put in this season (at the beginning).
- Also, the animated "Shake Hands With Danger" is at the end.
2009- For the two-parters ("The Case of Tommy Tucker," "Call It Free," etc.) I ignore release order and put the two parts back-to-back so that -- when played in series -- they play correctly.
- I also created "merged" versions of the shorts and put them at the end of the season, with names "What It Means to Be an American (Complete)" (etc.)
2010-2012- Nothing unusual... A time of peace in the galaxy.
2013- I sorted the Kickstarter shorts into the order of their "official" release.
- Also, I'm counting the "specials" as "shorts," so "Best of RiffTrax: Villains" and "RiffTrax Special: 90s Cyber Thrillers" are episodes 17 and 18 of that "season." (I figure if "Setting Up a Room" and others can clock in at nearly 30 minutes, then anything that isn't a movie is a short, in my world.)
2014- Nothing odd so far, but the year is young. Regardless, once "Batman & Robin" finishes, I might duplicate all those into a separate "TV series."
ADVANTAGES- By breaking down releases into "seasons," they're a bit more manageable. It's interesting to be able to play the 2010 "season" (for example).
- By using a system that keeps them in release order, a sense of continuity and progression is preserved. Played in order, references to Moose Baby don't occur before Moose Baby makes his appearance.
- Since they all exist in iTunes, it's possible to generate playlists, true random lists of episodes, etc.
- And since the files exist in a well-behaved folder structure within iTunes, I can also play them on any video player I have on my computer.
Presently, when I play videos on the iPad, I use OPlayer. It has two essential features for Shorts enjoyment: "Play All in a Folder" and "Shuffle." It also has background audio playing, which is nice for enjoying riff-quips while using the iPad for other stuff.
At present, I'm not sure how I'm going to handle RiffTrax ephemera ("Talkin' RiffTrax," "Kickstarter Thank Yous," etc.). Since those usually aren't as funny as Shorts/films, I
think I'm going to put them in a TV series called "RiffTrax Ephemera" (with "seasons" as "years"), but I'm not certain yet.
I hope this helps someone!
Topic: How do you sort your shorts? (Read 6159 times)
