Script to Shot List | Shoot First
Shoot First · The Craft

Script to Shot List

You have a script. You need to know where to put the camera. Here's the process that gets you from one to the other, and you'll leave with a real shot list for your own scene.

The Big Idea

You Don't "Storyboard a Scene"

That sounds like one giant impossible task. It's really a small repeatable decision, made a handful of times.

Break the scene into beats (moments where something changes). For each beat, answer four questions. Each set of answers is one shot. String the shots together and you have your shot plan. That's the entire method.

A beat is anything that shifts the scene: a line that lands, a decision, a reveal, someone entering. A typical dialogue scene has 4 to 8 beats. If you can read a scene and say "here's where it turns," you can shot-plan it.

The Engine

The Four Questions

Ask these about every beat. The answers ARE the shot.

1
Whose moment is it?
Every beat belongs to someone. The camera favours them. Ask: whose reaction matters most right now?
2
How close?
Shot size = emotional volume. Wide is observing. Close is feeling. Save your closest shot for the biggest beat.
3
From where?
Camera height and angle set the power. Level = equal. Low = they dominate. High = they're vulnerable.
4
Still or moving?
Static = stable, watchful. Moving = something is shifting. Move the camera when the scene's energy moves.

The trap to avoid: choosing shots because they look cool. Every answer above should come from the story. "Low angle because it looks dramatic" is decoration. "Low angle because this is the moment he takes control" is directing.

Try It: Interactive

You Direct This Scene

A one-page scene, five beats. At each beat, pick the shot you'd use. Then see what an experienced director picks, and why. There's no single right answer; the point is the reasoning.

INT. SHARED FLAT — KITCHEN — NIGHT
MAYA (20s) sits alone at the kitchen table, phone face-down in front of her. She flips it over. A text from DAN: "we need to talk x". She stares at it. Types a reply. Deletes it. Types again. Deletes it. Her flatmate JESS enters, clocks the phone, clocks Maya's face. JESS: Dan? Maya slides the phone across the table. Jess reads it. Winces. JESS: The kiss at the end is a bold choice. Maya laughs despite herself. Then her face crumples. Jess sits down next to her.
That's the whole method. Five beats, four questions each, and you just built a shot plan for a scene. You didn't draw anything, lean on cinematography theory, or plan the whole thing at once. You made one small decision at a time.
Now You: Your Scene

Build Your Shot List

Same process, your script. Add your beats, answer the four questions for each, and the shot list writes itself below. Copy it or download it. This is what you take to set.

First, on paper or in your head: read your scene once and mark where it turns. Each turn is a beat. Then come back here and type each beat in as a row.
Your Shot List, updates live
Fill in your beats above and your shot list appears here…
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Scaling to a full film →
This is a per-scene process. For a short film, run it scene by scene, in script order. A 10-minute short might be 8 to 12 scenes, so 8 to 12 passes through this sheet. Two practical upgrades once you're comfortable: sketch a quick bird's-eye diagram of each location marking camera positions (it catches impossible setups before shoot day), and rough-sketch a frame for only your most complex shots. Stick figures are fine. The shot list is the backbone; boards are optional, and only for the tricky bits.