The AI shot list.

What a shot list is for

A storyboard shows what a shot looks like. A shot list says what it is: scene four, shot three, medium close-up, eye level, slow push, Mara at the window, 50mm, dusk. The list is the document the camera department, the first assistant director and the script supervisor all work from, and it is the one that turns a scene into a count — how many setups, and therefore how many hours. A director who walks on set with a shot list has decided the day. One who walks on with a storyboard has decided the look and left the day to be discovered.

Every row answers the same questions. Which beat of the scene is this shot for? How much of the frame does the subject fill — a wide that places them, a medium that reads their body, a close-up that reads their face, an insert that reads the object in their hand? From what height and side? Does the camera move, and if so how? Who and what is in it? Those five answers, in a row, for every shot, in the order the scene will cut — that is the whole document, and it is harder to write well than it looks, because each row is a small decision about what the audience should be looking at.

How a shot list is proposed from a scene

Read the scene for beats and cast. A scene is a sequence of moments: an arrival, a line that changes something, a look, an exit. Each beat is a candidate for its own shot, and who is in the beat decides what the shot can be. This reading starts from the breakdown — the script breakdown page covers it — so the list knows the cast and the location before it proposes a single frame.

Apply a coverage grammar. Film has standard patterns, and they exist because they work. Two people talking is a master and two singles, or two over-the-shoulders. An arrival is a wide and a closer shot. A reveal is a push. A chase is a montage of short setups. Script carries these as coverage templates — single, over-the-shoulder, master plus coverage, oner, montage — and the proposal for each beat starts from the pattern that fits it. The angle is chosen with the beat in mind, so a confrontation reads differently from a confession.

Set the density. A pitch needs three shots a scene; a shooting list needs every setup including the inserts. The same scene produces a different list at each density, and asking for the wrong one is the commonest reason a generated list disappoints. Decide what the list is for before it is made.

Edit, and keep the edits. The generated list is a proposal. The director collapses two singles into one developing shot, adds an insert the writer implied, cuts the master because the scene will play in one. Those changes are the shot design. A tool that regenerates the list from scratch when something upstream moves has thrown the director's work away; Script keeps every row editable and treats the edit as the record.

Hand it on. Each row gets a frame in Storyboard, made under the project's locks, and the list and the frames leave together — CSV or PDF, or inside the production package with the breakdown and the schedule. The script to storyboard page follows the list into the board.

What generated shot lists get wrong

Coverage without a reason. Every beat gets a wide, a medium and a close-up because the pattern says so, and the list is three times longer than the day can hold. A good list has shots that earn their place; a shot added by habit is a setup the crew will spend forty minutes on and the editor will never use. Read the list for what each shot is for, and cut the ones with no answer.

Angles that do not join. A single on one character from screen left and a single on the other from screen left too, so the two will not cut together; a push that ends where the next shot cannot begin. Geography is the thing a text-only reader cannot see, and a list is where it should be checked — before the storyboard makes the mistake visible in pictures.

Lenses and movements invented to sound professional. A list that specifies a 35mm on a slider for every shot is not more precise, it is pretending. Lens and movement belong in the row when they have been decided, and the honest default is to leave them blank until someone decides.

Numbering that will not survive the edit. Shots renumbered on every regeneration, so the board, the list and the schedule disagree about which shot 4C is. A shot's number is an identity; it should be assigned once and kept.

What a good output looks like: one row per shot that the director has read and either kept or changed; sizes and angles that cut together; movement and lens where decided and blank where not; stable numbers; the beat each shot serves visible; and a count at the bottom that the first assistant director can turn into a schedule without re-reading the script.

Where PREVIZ does it

Script builds the list from the breakdown at the density you set, from its coverage templates, and keeps it editable; Storyboard puts a frame against every row and holds the numbering. The list's price is quoted on the control before it runs, like every generating action on the platform, and plans differ by credits, not by which rooms you can open. For a shot the list cannot settle on paper — a move that has to be built, a set that has to be measured — stage the scene in CineForge, where the camera becomes numbers a crew can rig to; the 3D previs page is the next step. The named moves a list reaches for — a Dutch angle, a dolly zoom, an over-the-shoulder — are each explained in the technique library.

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