Planning the Shoot

The BasicsThe Script Breakdown

A script breakdown is a scene-by-scene pass through the screenplay that tags every element each scene actually requires: cast, extras, props, wardrobe, vehicles, animals, stunts, special equipment, VFX, and whether the scene is interior/exterior and day/night. Traditionally done by hand with colored pencils on a physical breakdown sheet, it's now almost always done in scheduling software.

The 1st Assistant Director and production manager own the master breakdown, since it drives the shooting schedule and budget. But a cinematographer does a parallel pass of their own, reading the same script specifically for camera, lighting, and grip implications: which scenes need a crane, which need a night exterior lighting package, which have a VFX greenscreen requiring even, flat lighting rather than a dramatic one. That reading is where a DP's prep really begins — well before any look book image gets pulled.

A standard AD breakdown sheet lists cast, props, wardrobe, and vehicles — it has no reason to mention light. A cinematographer's own pass adds exactly the columns an AD breakdown leaves out. Here's a worked, illustrative example from a fictional short film:

Notice scenes 4 and 12 share a location (the rooftop) but sit far apart in the story — exactly the kind of pairing a schedule groups together, per the callout below. In practice this lives in the same scheduling software as the AD's breakdown, as extra fields or a linked document, not a separate sheet of paper.

The BasicsThe Shot List

A shot list is a literal, ordered list of every planned shot for a scene — size, angle, movement, lens, and a short description of the action — building directly on the vocabulary covered in Shot Sizes, Angles, and Movement. It's the document an editor, a script supervisor, and a director all check against during the day to confirm the scene has been fully "covered."

A shot list is distinct from a storyboard — the shot list is textual (often a spreadsheet), while a storyboard is a drawn, frame-by-frame visualization of the same plan. Productions with complex action or VFX often use both together; simpler dialogue scenes frequently rely on the shot list alone, with specific framing worked out on the day using the master-shot/coverage method described in Shot Sizes.

Critically, a shot list is almost never ordered in story sequence — it's ordered by setup: every shot that can be captured from one camera and lighting position is grouped and shot together, even if those shots land in completely different parts of the finished scene, because re-lighting and moving equipment for a new setup is the single biggest time cost on a shooting day. "We got the shot list" is common set shorthand for "the planned setups for today are complete."

Watch: Shot vs. Setup

The distinction this whole section rests on — a "shot" is what ends up in the edit, a "setup" is a camera/lighting position that can produce several shots. The worked example below shows it in practice.

Here's a worked shot list for scene 7 from the same fictional short (Tom burning the letter, from the breakdown above) — notice it's grouped into four setups rather than five shots in story order, and that Setup 2 gets two shots (an MCU then a CU) without moving the camera, just reframing and swapping lenses:

Shot 1 (Setup 1) gets filmed first, but in the finished edit it's the establishing shot the other four cut around — the shooting order and the story order are two entirely different sequences, and the shot list is what keeps them straight for everyone on set.

The BasicsFloor Plans & Blocking Diagrams

A floor plan (or blocking diagram) is a top-down, bird's-eye technical drawing of the set or location — walls, doors, windows, furniture — marked up with actor blocking (where performers stand and move) and numbered camera positions for each planned setup. Gaffers and key grips often mark up the same floor plan with fixture and rigging positions, turning it into the lighting plot mentioned in Grip & Electric.

Here's the actual floor plan for that same kitchen scene — the numbered camera positions are Setups 1–4 from the shot list above, and the dashed lines show what each one is actually aimed at:

Floor plans catch expensive problems early — a planned dolly move that a wall actually blocks, a crane that won't fit through a doorway, a window that will backlight the wrong actor at the wrong hour — while they're still just pencil marks instead of a stalled crew on an expensive day.

Deeper DiveHow It All Fits Together

These documents form a pipeline, not a checklist to complete in isolation. The script breakdown feeds the shooting schedule; the schedule tells a cinematographer which scenes they're prepping next; the look book supplies the visual direction for those scenes; and the shot list and floor plan translate that direction into the literal setups, lenses, and blocking the crew will actually execute on the day.

Much of this planning is finalized at a tech scout — a pre-production site visit where the director, cinematographer, gaffer, key grip, production designer, and other department heads walk the real location together. It's where floor plans get corrected against reality, power access gets confirmed (see Grip & Electric), and exterior scenes get checked against the actual direction the sun will be coming from at the scheduled shoot time.

On LocationLocation Scouting

Location scouting is the earlier, narrower step that makes a tech scout possible in the first place: a location manager, usually alongside the director and cinematographer, searches out and evaluates real places against what the script and the look book actually need, before any location is locked in. Only once a location is chosen does the fuller tech scout — the full-department walkthrough described above — happen.

What a cinematographer is specifically checking during a scout rarely shows up in a location photo: the direction and quality of available light through the day (critical for anything relying on a specific sun angle or "magic hour"), how much ceiling height and floor space exist for lighting rigs, a crane, or a planned dolly track, where power can realistically be pulled from, and ambient noise the sound department will have to fight (traffic, HVAC hum, a nearby flight path).

The reason this step gets its own name and its own budget line: an un-scouted assumption is one of the most expensive surprises a production can have on the actual shooting day — a beautiful room that faces the wrong direction for the planned shot, a period location with no accessible power outlets, or simply not enough physical space for the camera move that was designed for it on paper.

Watch: Roger Deakins on Location Scouting

Cinematographer Roger Deakins speaking generally about location scouting, drawing on his own experience across the films he's shot.

Watch: A Tech Scout in Practice

A real tech scout, with heads of department (HODs) walking a location together — the process described above, in action.