cinemasetfreeBuilding a usable shot list
Shots arrive from boarded scenes, or you add them by hand. The work is filling in estimated duration honestly: it is the number the schedule adds up, and defaults make the board decorative.
A worked example: one location, one day
You have six scenes at the Roxy Cinema. The question the shot list has to answer is whether they fit in a day.
Get the shots in
Board the scenes and their panels become shots, carrying label, type and angle. For scenes you won’t board, add shots directly. The list has an add control and every field is editable inline.
Read the grouping
All six scenes’ shots appear together under Roxy Cinema, regardless of where they fall in the script. That block is your day.
Estimate honestly
Set estimated duration on each. A simple locked-off wide might be 20 minutes; a dialogue scene with a lighting change and four setups is two hours. Guessing is fine. Leaving the default is not, because then the total means nothing.
Order for the day
Drag shots into the order you’ll actually shoot: everything on one lighting setup together, everything facing one direction together. This is the order the call sheet will carry.
Check it against the schedule
The schedule adds those estimates up per day alongside the scene page counts. If the Roxy day totals eleven hours, you have found that out at a desk rather than at 7pm on the day.