Shot lists

Your Shot List will be the recipe for how you make the film, describing what each shot will look like one after another, when finally edited.

As the director, you will be guiding this session and encouraging the camera team and Assistant Director to pay careful attention.

Project or put up on the screen, your chosen script as a word document. Work with the entire class to identify specific shots for action and lines of dialogue, scene number by scene number based on what we’ve already learned about shot sizes, camera angles, and camera movement.

Make highlighted notes, next to each part of the script showing where you want the shot to change, and what shot you want it to change to.

Once all of the scene numbers have been listed with shot descriptions and shot numbers under them, review the Shot List again as a class (looking at the script projected on screen) discussing as a group any improvements for shot choices, and look for any shots that have potentially been missed.

Now that you have a list of shots allocated to each scene, ask your producer and first assistant director to add this information to the MASTER PRODUCTION DOCUMENT detailing what each type of shot will be.

Here is an example of what your shooting script will look like after you’ve done the shot listing: