The interviews went well and the client left happy. Two days later the editor opens the footage and there’s no close-up of hands on the keyboard, the shot the script’s video column asked for on row four.
Someone remembers reading it in the script. Nobody had it on a list in front of them while the lights were up in that corner of the office.
A shot list is that list. It takes every picture the script needs, adds the shots the edit will want anyway and puts them in the order the crew will shoot them, with a box to tick on each row.
In short
- A shot list turns every picture the script needs, plus the shots the edit will want, into rows the crew ticks off on the day.
- Each row gives the shot’s size, angle and movement, subject, audio, setup, minutes and priority.
- Order the rows by location and setup, wide to tight, except for shots tied to the clock or to a person.
- Add cutaways for each interview and a minute of room tone in every room where someone talks.
- Mark each shot must or nice before the day, and send the ticked list to the editor with the footage.
Shot list, storyboard and script
The script says what the viewer sees and hears, in story order. In a two-column script the left column already describes the pictures, but loosely. “B-roll: the team at work” could mean four shots or forty.
A storyboard draws the frames. It earns its cost when composition is the point, as in an ad with a product reveal. Most corporate shoots skip it.
The shot list is the working document for the day. Each row is one shot the camera has to get, with its size, angle and movement, what’s in frame, how the sound is recorded and roughly how long it takes.
When each part of the day happens is a separate job, covered in how to build a shooting schedule.
The columns, and a template to copy
| Column | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Block | The script row or scene the shot belongs to |
| Shot | The block number plus a letter: 3A, 3B, 3C |
| Size | WS (wide), MS (medium), CU (close-up), ECU (extreme close-up), insert |
| Angle and movement | Eye level, high or low; static, pan, tilt, push in, handheld, gimbal, slider |
| Subject | Who or what is in frame, and what happens |
| Audio | Sync sound, no sound (MOS), wild sound or room tone |
| Notes | Lens, frame rate for slow motion, “keep 9:16 safe” |
| Setup | The location and camera position the shot shares with others |
| Min | Estimated minutes to get it, resets included |
| Priority | Must or nice |
| Done | A tick, plus the good take or clip name |
The shot number says where a shot goes in the edit, and the order of the rows says when to shoot it. Keep both, since shooting 3B before 1A is normal.
To start a spreadsheet, paste this header into the first cell of a Google Sheet and use Data > Split text to columns. In Excel, Data > Text to Columns does the same.
Block,Shot,Size,Angle/move,Subject,Audio,Notes,Setup,Min,Priority,Done
A filled example: a 90-second team video
A made-up client, Larkfield Software, wants 90 seconds introducing its support team, with two interviews, the team at work and the front of the office.
It all happens in one building over a morning, and the rows are in shooting order: four in the meeting room, four on the support floor and two outside.
| Shot | Size, angle, movement and subject | Audio | Min | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3A | MS on camera A, CU on camera B, eye level, static. Priya, head of support, answers six questions | Sync, lav and boom | 40 | Must |
| 7A | Same setup. Tom, a support agent, answers four questions | Sync, lav and boom | 30 | Must |
| 3B | CU cutaways in the same light. Both people’s hands, the notebook on the table, the window | None | 10 | Must |
| RT1 | Room tone in the meeting room, everyone still | One minute of silence | 5 | Must |
| 6A | MS, handheld. The 11:00 stand-up at the whiteboard | Sync, boom | 15 | Must |
| 2A | WS, high angle from the stairs, static. The support floor, people on calls | None | 10 | Must |
| 4A | ECU, slider. Hands on a keyboard, the ticket queue on screen (the client clears the data first) | None | 15 | Must |
| 2B | CU inserts. A headset on a desk, a mug with the logo | None | 10 | Nice |
| 1A | WS, low angle, static. The entrance with the logo on the glass | Wild sound | 10 | Must |
| 1B | Tilt up from the sign to the top of the building | None | 5 | Nice |
The ten shots add up to 150 minutes of camera time. Lighting the meeting room takes an hour before the first interview, and the move to the floor and the walk outside add about 45 minutes.
Those numbers are what go into the day’s schedule. If the morning runs long, 2B and 1B are the first to go.
Order the list by setup, not by the script
Group every shot that shares a location, then every shot that shares a setup inside it. Lighting and moving the camera eat most of a shoot day.
In the example both interviews use the same lights and chairs, so Tom sits down as soon as Priya gets up, even though his lines come four rows later in the script. Lighting and framing for that kind of interview are in how to film a talking head video.
Inside a setup, shoot the wide first and move in. The wide shows the most of the room, so it’s the hardest to light, and once it works the tighter shots need small adjustments instead of a new setup.
Get everything facing one direction before turning the camera around, because the reverse means moving lights, stands and whoever is standing behind the camera.
Two kinds of shots break the rule. Some are tied to the clock, like a stand-up that happens at 11:00 whether you’re ready or not, or a CEO who’s free only from 9:30 to 10:00.
Those go in first and the rest is built around them, which is why the floor in the example opens with the stand-up instead of the wide.
Others depend on a person, so shots with talent come before shots without, and B-roll fills the gaps while someone changes or takes a call.
B-roll, cutaways and room tone
Every B-roll line in the script’s video column becomes at least one row, usually two, a wide and an insert. In the example, the script line about the support floor became 2A and 2B, so the editor has a choice of sizes.
Cutaways are shots the script doesn’t mention and the edit needs anyway. Interview answers get trimmed, and each trim needs something to cut to, like hands, a detail of the room or the product.
Give them their own row in each interview setup, like 3B. Our paper edit post shows the same problem from the edit suite.
Room tone isn’t a picture, but it goes on the list because it’s the thing people forget. A minute of silence in each room where someone talks lets the editor fill gaps in the dialogue without the background changing.
If the deliverables list includes vertical cuts, write “keep 9:16 safe” in the notes of every shot they’ll use, so the camera team leaves room on both sides. Our post on reframing from 16:9 to 9:16 covers the edit when nobody did.
Mark the musts, then tick them off on set
Mark every shot before the shoot. A must is a shot the edit can’t work without: the interviews, every script line that needs a picture, the product shot the client asked for by name. A nice-to-have has a substitute, like a second angle or a detail another insert could cover.
The marks matter at three in the afternoon, when the day is an hour behind and the director has to drop shots without an argument on set.
Agree on the musts with the client before the day, along with the rest of the pre-production checklist.
On set, one person owns the list, usually the producer or an assistant director. They tick a shot when the director calls it done, which isn’t always when the camera stops, and write the good take or clip name next to it.
Changes go in the notes (“4A shot handheld, the slider didn’t fit”). Before leaving a setup, read out its unticked rows, since ten minutes there costs less than relighting after lunch.
At the end of the day the list goes to the editor with the footage. The ticks say what exists and the take numbers where to find it. Any must still unticked becomes the pickup list.
How this works in RecReview
RecReview doesn’t have a shot list. The list stays in your spreadsheet or in the script’s video column, and the production plan works one level up. Each block is a whole video, linked to its task, not a single shot.
Each video block shows the video’s estimated length and its recording time, which is that length multiplied by the pace of the day (Optimistic 2×, Normal 2.5×, Realistic 3× by default, Conservative 4×).
The length usually comes from the spoken words in the script, so the estimate fits a presenter reading to camera. A video built from interviews and B-roll, like the example, needs the shot list total instead, and you can type those minutes over the block’s recording time.
Pick the pace first, since changing it recalculates every video block. Setup Change blocks go between videos shot in different setups, and you can drag blocks into whatever order the day needs.
The shot list can sit on the video’s task as an attachment, either a link to the spreadsheet or the file itself (CSV, Excel or PDF, up to 50 MB), and clicking the video block in the plan opens that task.
If the shots live in the script’s video column instead, the shared plan already links each video’s script. The Talent column says who’s on camera.
A note on a block, like “stand-up at 11:00” or “2B and 1B are nice-to-have”, shows on the shared plan, which opens without a login.
On the day, ticking a block records when it ended, shows how far ahead or behind it ran and moves the rest of the day to match. The shot-by-shot ticks stay on your list.
