What Is a Shot List? How to Make One (With 6 Famous Scene Examples)

Hitchcock filmed the shower scene in Psycho with 78 camera setups for 52 cuts, and it took a week. A scene like that doesn’t happen by luck. It happens because someone wrote every shot down first. That list is a shot list. Below, you’ll learn what goes in one, how to make your own in six steps, and how six famous scenes look when you break them down shot by shot.

What Is a Shot List?

A shot list is a document that breaks a script into the individual shots you need to film. Each line is one shot. It tells the crew what the camera sees, how it moves and what it needs to capture.

Where a script says what happens, a shot list says how you’ll film it. “Maya finds a note on the door” becomes an extreme wide of the house, a tracking shot up the path, a medium shot at the door, an insert of the note and a close-up of her face.

• Who writes it: the director, usually with the director of photography (DP)
• Who uses it: the DP and camera team, the first assistant director (AD), sound and art
• When: in pre-production, after the script is locked and before the shooting schedule
• How long: one line per shot, so a short film might run to a few pages

What Goes in a Shot List

Column	What to write	Example
Scene and shot	Numbers that match the script	12, shot 3
Description	The action, in one line	Maya stops at the door
Shot size	How much of the subject is in frame	MS (medium shot)
Angle	Where the camera sits	EL (eye level)
Movement	What the camera does	STATIC, TRACK, PAN
Lens	Focal length	50mm
Sound	What you record	SYNC or MOS
Cast and props	Who and what must be there	Maya, the note
Order and time	Shooting order and how long it takes	3rd, 15 min

You don’t need every column on every shoot. A vlog might only need description and size. A feature needs all of them and more. Our free shot list template has all nine, as a fillable PDF or a Google Sheet.

How to Make a Shot List in 6 Steps

1. Read the scene and mark the beats. Underline every moment that changes something: an entrance, a look, a line that lands. Each beat usually needs its own shot.
2. Decide what the audience needs to see. Start wide to show where we are, then move closer as the emotion rises. Our guide to types of shots in film covers the sizes to pick from.
3. Write one line per shot. Number them in script order: 1, 2, 3. Add a letter for extra angles on the same moment: 3A, 3B.
4. Fill in the camera columns. Size, angle, movement and lens. Use standard shorthand so the whole crew reads it the same way.
5. Add sound, cast and props. This is where the AD and the art department find what they need.
6. Set the shooting order. Group shots by setup, shoot the wide first and save inserts for last. Every time the camera and lights move, the clock runs.

Shot List vs Storyboard

A shot list and a storyboard plan the same shots in two different ways. The storyboard shows them. The shot list describes them.

	Shot list	Storyboard
Format	Written list or spreadsheet	Drawn frames
Best for	Scheduling, crew, gear, sound	Composition, movement, action
Who reads it most	AD, DP, sound, art	Director, DP, VFX, stunts
Time to make	Fast	Slower

Most productions use both. Draw the tricky shots and list all of them. Our storyboard template uses the same shorthand as the shot list template, so you can staple them together. For how directors use storyboards, see what is a storyboard. The shot list also feeds the call sheet, which tells cast and crew when and where to show up.

6 Shot List Examples From Famous Scenes

Each of these scenes shows one lesson a shot list teaches. They count down to the most planned 45 seconds in horror.

6) The Big Short (2015)

Adam McKay stops a finance movie cold to put Margot Robbie in a bubble bath and have her explain mortgage bonds to the camera.

The film breaks the fourth wall again and again. Anthony Bourdain explains CDOs with old fish, and Richard Thaler and Selena Gomez explain synthetic CDOs at a blackjack table. Each one is a self-contained setup with its own location, cast and look, which makes it its own line on the shot list.

That’s the lesson for your own list. Cutaways, inserts and title cards are easy to forget because they aren’t in the dialogue. Give each one a row. The film won Best Adapted Screenplay at the Oscars, and those cutaways are a big part of why it plays.

5) Jaws (1975)

When Chief Brody sees the shark attack from the beach, the background seems to rush toward him while his face stays the same size.

The move is a dolly zoom. The camera dollies one way while the lens zooms the other, so the subject stays the same size and the background warps. It was first created by Irmin Roberts, a Paramount second-unit cameraman, for Hitchcock’s Vertigo, and it’s now often called “the Jaws shot.”

On a shot list, a line like “CU Brody, DOLLY ZOOM IN, zoom lens + track” tells the grips to lay track and the camera team to prep a zoom lens before the day. Write the move and the kit on the same line. Spielberg’s version works because it lands on one exact beat, the moment Brody knows.

4) Goodfellas (1990)

Henry Hill takes Karen into the Copacabana through the back door, and the camera follows them in one unbroken Steadicam shot of about three minutes.

The route crosses the street, goes down the stairs at the back entrance, along a hallway, through the kitchen and out into the club, where a table is set down in front of the stage. Ballhaus added the kitchen because, as he told his Steadicam operator, “the light is beautiful.” He lit the whole route so McConkey could point the camera anywhere.

For a shot like this, the shot list becomes a map. You write one shot number, then list the beats in order: the tip at the door, the stairs, the kitchen, the table. Producer Irwin Winkler has said the shot shows Henry impressing Karen, and why the Goodfellas world looked so glamorous. One row, a lot of planning.

3) Children of Men (2006)

A quiet drive turns into an ambush, and we watch it all from inside the car in what plays as one take.

The camera floats around five actors inside the car. According to American Cinematographer, the car’s roof was removed so the rig could fit, and the operators rode on top. Two drivers steered, one facing forward and one in reverse. The sequence hides a couple of seamless cuts, one on a bullet impact and one as the camera leaves the car.

You won’t build a camera rig for your short film. But the lesson scales down. If a line on your list says “360 inside a moving car,” someone has to work out how that’s possible, what it costs and how long it takes. The shot list is where that question gets asked, weeks before the shoot.

2) 1917 (2019)

Sam Mendes made a whole war film look like one continuous shot, following two soldiers across the front line.

Mendes and his cast rehearsed in empty fields, walking each scene and marking the route with poles. Only then were the sets built. The trenches, the length of no man’s land and the farmhouse were placed to match how long each scene took to walk and talk. The production dug about a mile of trenches.

That’s the Est. time column taken to its limit. Most shot lists guess at time. On 1917, the timing decided the size of the sets. The film won Oscars for cinematography, sound mixing and visual effects.

1) Psycho (1960)

The shower scene lasts about 45 seconds on screen, but Hitchcock spent a whole week filming it, with 78 camera setups and 52 cuts.

Saul Bass storyboarded the scene. The knife never visibly enters the body. The terror comes from the cutting: the curtain, the shadow, the scream, the water, the drain, the eye. Each of those is a separate setup, and each needed its own line.

This is why Psycho sits at number one. A single long take is one row with a lot of notes. A montage like the shower scene is 78 rows, each with its own size, angle and move. If you ever cut a fight, a crash or a scare, you’re making a small version of this list. Write every shot down, or you’ll find out in the edit which ones you forgot.

Common Shot List Mistakes

• Listing too many shots. A shot list isn’t a wish list. If you can’t film it in the time you have, cut it on paper.
• Forgetting inserts. Hands, props, screens and signs are easy to miss. Give them rows.
• Script order on the day. Shoot by setup, not by page. The Order column is there for a reason.
• No coverage for dialogue. Plan at least a wide and a close-up for each speaker, so the editor has choices. See our guide to film coverage.
• Keeping it to yourself. Send the shot list to the DP and the AD before the shoot, not on the morning of.

FAQs About Shot Lists

The Final Cut on Shot Lists

A shot list turns a script into a plan your crew can follow. Hitchcock needed 78 setups for 45 seconds. Scorsese needed one shot and a map. Both started by writing it down.

Take one scene from your script this week. Mark the beats, write one line per shot and set your shooting order.

Grab our free shot list template to start, and star the three shots you can’t live without.