cinemasetfreeCategories and prep status
Fifteen categories spanning every department that has to bring something. Status tracks preparation, meaning whether a thing is ready to shoot. Procurement is separate and lives on the scouted item.
The fifteen categories
Category filters the list and tells you which department owns the element.
| Category | What belongs there |
|---|---|
| Prop | Objects characters handle. The largest category on most productions. |
| Set dressing | What fills the room and isn’t handled. |
| Vehicle | Anything driven, ridden or towed. Picture vehicles and background traffic. |
| SFX | Practical effects achieved on the day: squibs, rain, wind, breakaways. |
| VFX | Anything completed in post. Flagging it at breakdown is how the VFX budget stops being a surprise. |
| Stunt | Anything requiring a stunt performer or coordinator. |
| Animal | Animals and their handlers. Almost always carries its own scheduling constraints. |
| Makeup | Prosthetics, blood, ageing, injury. Anything beyond standard. |
| Wardrobe | Costume elements the breakdown needs to flag, distinct from the design-side Wardrobe tab. |
| Camera | Special camera requirements: a second body, a probe lens, high-speed. |
| Lighting | Anything beyond the standard package. |
| Grip | Dollies, cranes, track, rigging. |
| Sound | Playback, radio mics beyond the norm, practical sound sources. |
| Special equipment | Everything that is a hire and doesn’t fit above: crash pads, scaffold, generators. |
| Other | The escape hatch. If you’re using it often, the category list is wrong for your production. |
Prep status
Four values, and the department that owns the element moves it through them.
| Status | Means | Who moves it |
|---|---|---|
| To do | Identified in the breakdown. Nothing done yet. | Set automatically on creation. |
| Ready | Prepped and waiting: built, bought, rehearsed, rigged. | The department that owns it. |
| On set | Physically present where it’s being shot. | Usually the AD department on the day. |
| Wrapped | Finished with: returned, struck, released. | Whoever is responsible for getting it back. |
Where an element came from
An element can record the scouted item it came from, which is how “the 1911 we’re using” connects to “the one at Bapty at £40/day”. It records provenance rather than a live link. Changing one does not change the other.
That’s deliberate. The props master reserving a weapon and the 1st AD tracking whether it’s on set are different decisions made by different people at different times, and forcing them to share one row would mean one of them is always wrong.