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 New Shot button on the right of the top menu bar (desktop), or the + button in the top app bar (phone). Both open a dialog asking which scene number to add the shot to.
• Hotkey. Cmd / Ctrl + N opens the same scene-number dialog, pre-filled with the highest scene number. On an empty list it skips the dialog and creates the first shot in scene 1.
• Populate from Script. Open the Script Editor and press Shift + P (or use its Populate button — the hotkey does nothing on the shot list screen). It scans the script’s scene headings (lines like INT. KITCHEN - DAY) and shows a preview before anything changes: Merge adds only scenes not in your list yet, Replace clears the list and rebuilds it from the script. By default it creates several suggested shots per scene with descriptions and shot types; pick “scenes only” for one placeholder shot per scene instead. Location names from the headings are carried onto the scenes. On the free tier, population stops at the project limit of 25 scenes / 50 shots. 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:

• US — 1A, 1B, 2A. Scene number + letter per shot within the scene. Default.
• EU — 1.1, 1.2, 2.1.
• UK — 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 only changes how numbers are displayed — it doesn’t alter the underlying shots, and you can switch back anytime.

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 gap between two scenes — the shot joins the end of the scene above. Dragging never creates a new scene; to create one, use the New Shot dialog and type a scene number that doesn’t exist yet, or use Populate from Script.

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

On desktop, open the shot’s edit dialog and use the Delete Shot button, or select the row(s) and press Delete / Backspace — a Delete Selected button also appears in the selection bar. On mobile, swipe the shot row to reveal the delete action. 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 in Linear view — removes the scene and every shot in it, everywhere. Deleting a scene from a Production day removes it from that day’s schedule only.

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.