Shot list essentials

The shot list is where pre-production lives: every shot in the script, in the order you plan to shoot them. This article covers the building blocks — adding shots, the numbering scheme, reordering, and what happens when you delete things.

This guide assumes The basics. The click-tap-drag vocabulary in the shot list is the same as every other list in the app.

Three ways to populate

A new project gives you an empty shot list. There are three ways to fill it:

• Manually, one shot at a time. Click the + Add Shot button at the bottom of any scene block.
• Hotkey. Cmd / Ctrl + N adds a new shot at the bottom of the currently focused scene.
• Populate from Script. Shift + P (or the toolbar button) scans the imported script’s scene headings (lines like INT. KITCHEN - DAY) and auto-creates one scene block per heading, each with a default shot. The output is only as clean as your script — malformed headings yield malformed scenes.

Most projects start with Populate from Script as a rough first pass, then refine manually.

Shot numbering

Shots are numbered automatically. Three formats are available in Display Settings:

• Alphanumeric — 1A, 1B, 2A. Scene number + letter per shot within the scene. Default.
• Decimal — 1.1, 1.2, 2.1.
• Sequential — 1, 2, 3, 47. Continuous through the project.

Numbers and letters update on reorder. If you move 1C to the top of its scene, the list briefly reads C, A, B before recomputing to A, B, C. Don’t write down a shot’s letter and expect it to be stable across moves.

Changing format renumbers the entire project. On a lined project that’s destructive — confirm before doing it.

Reordering shots

Drag any shot to move it. The gesture is the universal drag from The basics:

• Within a scene — drag up or down. Letters recompact.
• Across scenes — drag past a scene boundary. The shot’s scene number changes to match the destination; letters recompact in both source and destination scenes.
• Into the empty space between two scenes — CineLog creates a new scene there.

Production view adds a scene-scope rule for multi-selections; see Linear vs Production.

Editing shot fields

Click a cell (desktop) or tap to expand the row and tap a field (mobile). Fields are field-aware: the shot number opens a text input, day and lens are dropdowns, status and previs are toggles or picker buttons. All edits autosave — no Save button. See The basics for the keyboard shortcuts inside the editor and the autosave caveats.

Custom columns you add in Display Settings appear automatically alongside the built-in ones.

Deleting

Right-click a shot → Delete (desktop), or swipe / overflow menu (mobile). The cascade depends on what you delete and where:

• A single shot in Linear view — removes it from the project. If it was the last shot in its scene, the scene goes too (there’s no empty-scene state).
• A single shot in Production view — removes it from the schedule for that day only. The shot still exists in Linear and can be rescheduled.
• A scene (right-click the scene header) — removes the scene and every shot in it, everywhere.

The confirmation dialog always spells out what’s about to disappear before you commit. Full delete semantics across views are in Linear vs Production.

If this isn’t working

“My shot letters changed after I dragged.” Expected — letters are recomputed after every reorder so they stay in display order.

“Populate from Script gave me a mess of scenes.” Open the script and clean up the scene headings (INT. / EXT. LOCATION - TIME), then re-run.

“I deleted the last shot in a scene and the whole scene disappeared.” Also expected — there’s no empty-scene state. To keep the scene around, leave a placeholder shot in it.