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Shot Lists and Storyboards for Indie Filmmakers

On a small production, time on set is the scarcest resource you have. The cast is giving you a weekend, the location is yours until six, and every minute spent deciding where the camera goes is a minute not spent shooting. Shot lists and storyboards move those decisions to the days before the shoot, when thinking is cheap.

This guide follows the path from finished script to a plan you can shoot from: breaking the script down, choosing shots, planning coverage, drawing boards and floor plans, and scheduling by setup. It ends with one short scene broken into a full shot list.

Start With a Script Breakdown

Before you plan a single shot, go through the script scene by scene and list everything each scene needs. This is the script breakdown. Common categories include:

  • Cast: speaking roles in each scene.
  • Extras: background people, and how many.
  • Locations: where each scene happens, and whether it is interior or exterior, day or night.
  • Props: anything an actor handles. A photograph, a coffee pot, a set of keys.
  • Wardrobe: what each character wears, and whether it changes or gets damaged.
  • Set dressing, vehicles, makeup and effects: anything else a department must provide.

The scene headings do much of this work for you, which is one reason clean formatting matters. If your script is still settling, our screenplay format guide covers how headings and action lines are written so a breakdown can read them.

The breakdown tells you what has to be on set. The shot list tells you what you will do with it.

Shot Sizes

Shot size describes how much of the subject fills the frame. The common abbreviations:

  • WS (wide shot): the full figure and plenty of surroundings. Establishes geography. An extreme wide shot (EWS) shows a figure small in a landscape.
  • MS (medium shot): roughly waist up. Good for conversation and gesture.
  • CU (close-up): the face, or a single object. Where emotion lives.
  • ECU (extreme close-up): a detail, such as an eye or a finger on a trigger.
  • OTS (over the shoulder): framed past one character's shoulder onto another. The backbone of dialogue coverage.
  • Insert: a close shot of an object or detail the audience must see, like a text message or a ring.

You will also see MCU (medium close-up), full shot and two-shot. Terminology varies slightly between crews, so agree on your abbreviations before the shoot.

Angles and Movement

Angle is where the camera sits relative to the subject. Eye level is neutral. A low angle looks up and tends to make a subject feel larger; a high angle looks down and can make them feel smaller or exposed. Overhead shots, tilted (Dutch) angles and POV shots each carry a strong flavor, so use them for a reason.

Movement describes what the camera does during the shot:

  • Static: locked off on a tripod.
  • Pan and tilt: the camera pivots horizontally or vertically from a fixed point.
  • Dolly or track: the camera physically moves toward, away from or alongside the subject.
  • Handheld: operated on the shoulder or in the hands, with natural shake.
  • Crane or jib: vertical moves and sweeping reveals.

On a small budget, movement costs time. A dolly move needs track laid, rehearsals and more takes. Decide which moments in the scene earn it.

Coverage

Coverage is the set of shots that lets an editor assemble a scene in different ways. A typical dialogue scene might get a wide master of the whole action, a medium two-shot, OTS shots each way, close-ups on each actor and inserts of key props.

Coverage protects you in the edit, but it is not free. Every new setup means moving lights and camera. The skill is deciding what the scene truly needs. A quiet two-person scene might work in a master and two close-ups. A scene with a key reveal needs the insert, or the audience will miss it.

Keep the 180-degree rule in mind as you plan: draw an imaginary line between two characters and keep the camera on one side of it, so their eyelines stay consistent from shot to shot.

Shot List Columns

A shot list is a table of every shot you plan to capture. Whether you keep it in a spreadsheet, a notebook or dedicated software, these are the columns most productions use:

  1. Scene: the scene number from the shooting script.
  2. Shot number: often a letter after the scene number (12A, 12B, 12C).
  3. Size: WS, MS, CU and so on.
  4. Angle: eye level, low, high, POV.
  5. Movement: static, pan, dolly, handheld.
  6. Lens: the planned focal length, if you know it.
  7. Subject and action: who is in frame and what happens.
  8. Notes: sound, props, special requirements.
  9. Estimated setup: a rough guess at how long it will take to get the shot ready.

The setup estimate is the column most people skip, and the one that makes scheduling realistic.

Storyboards, Even With Stick Figures

A storyboard is a sequence of drawn frames showing what each shot looks like. You do not need to draw well. Stick figures in rectangles, with arrows for movement, communicate more than a paragraph of notes. What matters is framing: where characters sit in the frame, how big they are and which way they face.

Storyboard the shots that are hard to explain: stunts, effects, reveals, tricky transitions and anything involving several departments at once. A static two-shot of people talking rarely needs a board.

Reference images help too. A frame from a photograph or a piece of concept art can show your cinematographer the mood and palette faster than words. Our guide to organizing concept art and references for a story world covers keeping those references findable.

Floor Plans

A floor plan is an overhead diagram of the location: walls, furniture, doors, windows, actor positions and camera positions with numbered arrows matching your shot list. It shows at a glance which shots share a camera direction and therefore a lighting setup. It also makes the 180-degree line easy to check.

Draw one for any scene with more than a couple of setups. Graph paper is fine.

Schedule by Setups and Locations

Films are rarely shot in script order. Productions group work by location first, then by setup within a location. If scenes 4, 19 and 33 all happen in the same kitchen, you shoot them on the same day.

Within a scene, shoot all the shots facing one direction before turning the camera around. Turning around usually means relighting and moving gear, so doing it once instead of four times can save much of your day. Your floor plan and setup estimates make this ordering obvious.

Worked Example: One Scene, One Shot List

Here is a short original scene:

INT. ROADSIDE DINER - NIGHT

Empty booths. Rain on the window. JUNE (30s, waitress,
name tag) refills coffee for the only customer, WALT (60s,
wet coat).

Walt slides a faded photograph across the counter. A girl,
about six, on a carousel horse.

                    WALT
          You still ride those?

June looks at the photo. Then at him. She sets the coffee
pot down very carefully.

                    JUNE
          We're closing.

The key moment is the photograph, and the key emotion is June's recognition. Here is one possible shot list, with setups grouped by camera direction:

SETUP 1: Camera behind the counter, facing the window
12A  WS     Eye level  Static   Wide lens    June refills Walt's
                                             coffee, rain behind.
                                             Master of full scene.
                                             Est. setup: 45 min
12B  MS     Eye level  Static   Normal lens  Walt slides photo,
                                             delivers line.
                                             Est. setup: 15 min
12C  CU     Eye level  Slow     Long lens    Walt, waiting for
                       push in               her answer.
                                             Est. setup: 20 min

SETUP 2: Camera on Walt's side, facing the kitchen
12D  OTS    Eye level  Static   Normal lens  Past Walt onto June
                                             as she sees photo.
                                             Est. setup: 40 min
12E  CU     Eye level  Static   Long lens    June: recognition,
                                             "We're closing."
                                             Est. setup: 15 min

SETUP 3: Overhead on the counter
12F  INSERT High       Static   Normal lens  The photograph on
                                             the counter. Hero
                                             prop needed.
                                             Est. setup: 20 min
12G  INSERT Eye level  Static   Normal lens  June sets the pot
                                             down. Steady hand.
                                             Est. setup: 10 min

The setup times are planning guesses for this example, not standards. The structure is the point: all the window-facing shots happen before the crew turns around, the inserts are grouped at the end, and the photograph is flagged as a hero prop so nobody forgets it. A floor plan for this scene would show the 180-degree line running along the counter between June and Walt, with every camera position on the customer side except the window-facing setup.

If you are building the scene's structure before planning shots, our guide to beat sheets for screenwriters helps you confirm which moments carry the story and deserve the most coverage.

Planning Your Shoot in Aevon

In Aevon, a Movie project opens Script Studio, which keeps the screenplay, script breakdowns, shot lists and storyboards in one project. You can write in industry screenplay format, break the script down, then plan shots and boards next to the scenes they belong to, so a rewrite and the shot plan do not drift into separate files. Fountain and Final Draft (FDX) import and export mean you can bring in a script written elsewhere.

For visual references, the asset library keeps concept art, reference images, 3D models, audio, video and documents in one place per project, with 5 GB of storage per user. Large files over 25 MB upload through Rapidfile, which is handy for test footage or location video.

If you are working with a crew, collaboration roles (owner, editor, viewer) let you share the project, and change approval lets the owner review edits before they land. The floating Ideas and Notes panel stays open across sections with split screen, so a location note can sit beside the shot list. Aevon is free on the web, macOS, Windows and Android, so you can start planning your next shoot in Aevon's screenwriting software.

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