Filmmaking Practice: Creating A Shot List
In our last issue we covered the main camera movements used in cinema and, more importantly, the kind of emotional impact each one of them can produce in the spectator.
It was a pretty dense lesson, so today we’ll start bringing home everything you’ve learned so far about shot sizes, camera angles, and camera movement, by creating your first real shot list.
Creating a shot list is a very important first step in production, no matter if you’re going to get the coverage using actual cameras and actors or, as we AI filmmakers usually do, by prompting them out of AI image and video generation models.
To make this exercise more interesting and useful, instead of simply creating random shots to demonstrate specific camera movements, we’ll first think of a short sequence –that is, a part of a story– that we can bring to life using the tools of the Language of Visual Storytelling.
Feeling ready?
Let’s do this!
Let me first think of a short and easy sequence of events:
John is walking through a street in a populated city…
He gets to the entrance of a tall building where the offices of TANA Corp –yes, I just made that name up!– are located.
He goes to the front desk and presents himself as “Keanu Tana” –yes, let’s do Keanu instead of John… Because why not?– and tells the employee that he has come to see the company’s CEO.
The employee behind the desk looks confused. His name is that of the company’s Founder, but they have never seen him there before.
The employee asks him if he has an appointment, and he says: “No, he knows who I am”.
“Sorry, but without an appointment I’m afraid we cannot allow you in.”, the employee says.
Without saying another word, Keanu starts walking towards the elevator. The employee asks him to stop.
A couple of guards intercept him, and try to grab him to escort him outside the building, but Keanu, with a fast kung fu technique, disarms them and throws them on the floor.
He patiently walks to the closest elevator, shuts the doors and presses the button for floor 47. He’s barefoot.
In case you didn’t notice, this is, more or less, the opening sequence of the original Netflix’s series “Iron Fist” (which I wouldn’t recommend you waste your time watching, by the way).
But we can take the same idea and port it to another city or another time. Or both.
Let’s make the city Tokyo instead of New York… and maybe the year 2045.
We’ll decide on how the city should look later, when we start creating the shots
We can always default to a neon cyberpunk-style city if we really have no imagination!
And with that, we have material for a completely new and original story!
(You’d be surprised how many stories are just that: a simple port of another story!)
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, since we haven’t talked about how stories are built yet (that’s coming really soon!), so let’s use this simple sequence for now to sharpen our directorial chops.
As a side note, I know that not having a full script that details every aspect of the characters and settings for every scene feels a little handwavy, especially if you come from a traditional filmmaking background.
It is true that, in practice, you might want to sit down and write your script before getting ready to create your shot list.
That being said, in my experience the workflow of creating a movie using GenAI tools is way more flexible and iterative than using traditional methods.
It’s not unheard of among AI filmmakers to start, really, from any step in the process, and revisit later whatever needs to be revisited, in a continuous, back and forth, creative flow!
This iterative creative process is also supported and encouraged by the very nature of the tools we use:
It’s usually much more fruitful, for instance, to come to an image generation model with a loose idea of what we want, and use the superpower that GenAI gives us to iterate through hundreds of ideas really quickly, refining our vision at the same time.
After this iterative and deeply collaborative refinement process, we’ll usually arrive at a much higher quality final result.
So I say: “Keep loose and flexible!”
Follow your own creative process with no shame, knowing that whatever gets your creative juices flowing IS the way to go!
The first thing we need to do is to decide “What the viewer needs to see” at every step of the sequence to understand what’s going on.
Let’s think about it…
We have a character walking through a street in a populated city.
We also said this was going to be Tokyo in the near future, 2045, so things shouldn’t look that different.
That’s why I didn’t want to go for the year 2457, or something crazy like that.
Let’s stay grounded…
Being a Japanese city also provides us with some important art direction, not only for the city but also for the characters’ clothing, architecture, and other important aspects of the culture.
It even gives us the ability to look for reference pictures down the road if needed.
How can we make the spectator aware of all these things, showing instead of telling?
If you think about it, this calls for an establishing shot, concretely, a bird’s-eye view over the city.
So let’s add this first shot to our shot list:
BIRD’S-EYE (EWS): Futuristic Tokyo seen from high above.
Great!
What do we need to show the viewer next?
Keanu walking in a busy street (I mean, how else can we show it’s a “populated” city?)
Ok, so we have a few options here…
First thing that comes to mind is a tracking shot –or trucking, in this case–, since we’re following the movement of a character through the scene.
But we also have to think about the fact that we’re introducing this character to the spectator for the first time. This usually requires some special treatment, some kind of “reveal”.
There are many ways to reveal a character visually, but two classic shots that come to mind are a pedestal up and an orbit shot.
I’ll keep those in mind, but for our next shot I think a simple “trucking” showing the character walking will be fine:
BIRD’S-EYE (EWS): Futuristic Tokyo seen from high above.
TRUCKING (LS): A man is walking through a busy street
Ok, that’s good, but we still need to introduce our character somehow…
Now, the treatment of this introduction, or even if we do it at all at this point in the sequence, greatly depends on if the character has something unusual about them.
Honestly, at this point we should stop and decide on the character’s physical appearance and demeanor, if that’s not already clearly stated in the script or the character development notes.
But for the sake of space, I’ll assume there is nothing really special about him, besides maybe, his futuristic clothes (which the image model will help us to come up with later).
I also want to mention that in the original opening sequence of “Iron Fist”, they decided to show here that he was walking barefoot in the midst of New York City.
That’s a great creative choice, since the spectator immediately wonders what’s going on with this guy, and that lingering question will keep them glued to the screen for a couple more minutes…
In our case though, I’ve decided to keep that surprise to be revealed at the end of the sequence, playing with the elevator going up as the camera goes down…
So, all things considered, we can probably cut to a front tracking shot, likely a Wide Shot or a Long Shot (check out cheatsheet of shot sizes here):
BIRD’S-EYE (EWS): Futuristic Tokyo seen from high above.
TRUCKING (LS): A man is walking through a busy street
TRACKING BACK (LS): Man walking through a busy street
TRACKING FRONT (LS): Man walking through a busy street
I’m not sure if we’ll need it, but I also added a tracking shot from his back, right before we see him from his front for the first time.
What do we need to show the viewer next?
A tall building.
This screams for a tilt up shot!
But before getting there, we need to show the character turning his head up, so that the tilt up shot feels natural.
(don’t worry, I’ll cover how to cut naturally from shot to shot in a future issue… for now bear with me!)
I feel the best way to showcase this head movement is with a medium close up:
BIRD’S-EYE (EWS): Futuristic Tokyo seen from high above.
TRUCKING (LS): A man is walking through a busy street
TRACKING BACK (LS): Man walking through a busy street
TRACKING FRONT (LS): Man walking through a busy street
FIXED CAMERA (MCU): Man looks up
TILT UP (WS): Camera reveals a tall building across the street
Ok, now we need to get him inside…
But how will we do that?
What can we show to suggest this action without filming the entire thing in real time, which would hurt the pace of the scene and make it extremely boring for the viewer?
Always remember: the spectator is smart!
All they need is a hint, and their brain will fill in the gaps.
So no need to track the character crossing the street or other minutiae.
But… what’s the hint?
Let’s simply show his hand pushing the door.
If the cut feels too abrupt and confusing, we can add a really quick tracking shot showing him just about to get to the door:
BIRD’S-EYE (EWS): Futuristic Tokyo seen from high above.
TRUCKING LEFT (LS): A man is walking through a busy street
TRACKING BACK (LS): Man walking through a busy street
TRACKING FRONT (MS): Man walking through a busy street
FIXED CAMERA (MCU): Man looks up
TILT UP (WS): Camera reveals a tall building across the street
TRACKING BACK (MS): Man walks toward the building’s entrance
INSERT SHOT (ECU): His hand pushes the door open
And with that, we finished the first scene in the sequence!
Remember that we have a change of scene every time we change time or location.
Here, we have just finished a scene “filmed” on exteriors, and are about to start a new scene that takes place in the lobby of the building: a change of location.
Ok, time to tackle the second scene…
SCENE 1:
BIRD’S-EYE (EWS): Futuristic Tokyo seen from high above.
TRUCKING LEFT (LS): A man is walking through a busy street
TRACKING BACK (LS): Man walking through a busy street
TRACKING FRONT (MS): Man walking through a busy street
FIXED CAMERA (MCU): Man looks up
TILT UP (WS): Camera reveals a tall building across the street
TRACKING BACK (MS): Man walks toward the building’s entrance
INSERT SHOT (ECU): His hand pushes the door
SCENE 2:TRACKING BACK (MS): Man approaching the front desk. One employee is behind the desk.
FIXED POV (Point of View) Employee (LS): Man approaching the front desk
Ok, so we’ll need to showcase some dialog here.
We haven’t really covered dialog treatment in this newsletter yet –that’s coming soon– so let me give you a few pointers:
First, for normal dialog we usually use medium close ups (MCU), and the eventual close up (CU) here and there if we need to focus the attention on a specific facial expression or emotional response from the actor.
We rarely use extreme close ups (ECU) in dialog for normal day-to-day conversation.
We reserve extreme close ups for when the actors are getting really emotional, or the conversation is getting heated, to show the micro-expressions that signal anger, frustration, or lust.
From the camera movement and camera angle point of view, the camera is fixed in place, in an over-the-shoulder position.
There is also the 180-degree rule for conversations, but we won’t be covering it in this issue, to avoid confusion.
Finally, it’s good to keep in mind that the basic treatment for conversations is showing the face of the person who’s talking first, and immediately after cut to the other camera to show the other person’s reaction to what was said.
We then stay with this shot to show the response from the second actor, cut back to the first actor to show their reaction, and so on and so forth for the rest of the conversation.
That’s it.
That’s your brief intro course to dialog in cinema!
So let’s add some of those shots to our shot list now:
SCENE 2:
TRACKING BACK (MS): Man approaching the front desk. One employee is behind the desk.
FIXED POV Employee (LS): Man approaching the front desk
FIXED OTS (Over The Shoulder) Keanu (MCU): Employee behind the desk welcomes the man: “Welcome to TANA Enterprises. May I have your name?”
FIXED OTS Employee (MCU): Man replies: “Keanu TANA”
FIXED OTS Keanu (MCU): Employee, looking confused after hearing the name, quickly checks his appointment list… “Do you have an appointment Mr. Tana?”
FIXED OTS Employee (MCU): Man replies: “No. I came to talk with the CEO, Mr. Takeda. Let him know I’m going up. He knows me.”
FIXED OTS Keanu (MCU): “Oh, I’m sorry, but I’m afraid we can’t let you in without an appointment. Do you want me to check Mr. Takeda’s availability for next month?”
And that’s the end of the conversation.
Now our man just walks on…
We definitely need to back up a bit from those close ups to show the environment from a wider angle now…
Or maybe we can jump back to the point of view of the employee first, as she sees him leaving the desk in the direction of the elevators without saying a word…
I think this is the best choice, then we cut to a wide angle to cover the entire scene, including the desk where the employee is at, and Keanu walking away as the employee shouts at him, and maybe hits a button or something to call the guards on him.
Then, a slightly-over-the-shoulder back tracking shot so we can see the guards coming to him.
Or a straight-down “fly on the wall” shot taken from the ceiling, showing the three men approaching.
Let’s add those. We can always change them later:
SCENE 2:
TRACKING BACK (MS): Man approaching the front desk. One employee is behind the desk.
FIXED POV Employee (LS): Man approaching the front desk
FIXED OTS (Over The Shoulder) Keanu (MCU): Employee behind the desk welcomes the man: “Welcome to TANA Enterprises. May I have your name?”
FIXED OTS Employee (MCU): Man replies: “Keanu TANA”
FIXED OTS Keanu(MCU): Employee, looking confused after hearing the name, quickly checks his appointment list… “Do you have an appointment Mr. Tana?”
FIXED OTS Employee (MCU): Man replies: “No. I came to talk with the CEO, Mr. Takeda. Let him know I’m going up. He knows me.”
FIXED OTS Keanu (MCU): “Oh, I’m sorry, but I’m afraid we can’t let you in without an appointment. Do you want me to check Mr. Takeda’s availability for next month?”
FIXED POV Employee (MCU): The man leaves the desk without saying a word, and starts walking towards the elevators.
PAN LEFT (WS): The employee raises her voice and shouts: “Please stop! You cannot go up without an appointment!”. The man continues walking towards the elevators.
TILT DOWN POV Employee (WS): Camera tilts down from looking at the man walking away to the desk, to uncover a red alarm button.
INSERT SHOT (ECU): The hand of the employee activating the silent alarm to call the guards.
Thinking about it, a high angle shot from behind Keanu showing the guards approaching him might be more effective than a straight-down shot from the ceiling here…
Then we can briefly jump to Keanu POV, looking through his eyes:
SCENE 2:
TRACKING BACK (MS): Man approaching the front desk. One employee is behind the desk.
FIXED POV Employee (LS): Man approaching the front desk
FIXED OTS (Over The Shoulder) Keanu (MCU): Employee behind the desk welcomes the man: “Welcome to TANA Enterprises. May I have your name?”
FIXED OTS Employee (MCU): Man replies: “Keanu TANA”
FIXED OTS Keanu(MCU): Employee, looking confused after hearing the name, quickly checks his appointment list… “Do you have an appointment Mr. Tana?”
FIXED OTS Employee (MCU): Man replies: “No. I came to talk with the CEO, Mr. Takeda. Let him know I’m going up. He knows me.”
FIXED OTS Keanu (MCU): “Oh, I’m sorry, but I’m afraid we can’t let you in without an appointment. Do you want me to check Mr. Takeda’s availability for next month?”
FIXED POV Employee (MCU): The man leaves the desk without saying a word, and starts walking towards the elevators.
PAN LEFT (WS): The employee raises her voice and shouts: “Please stop! You can not go up without an appointment!”. The man continues walking towards the elevators.
TILT DOWN POV Employee (WS): Camera tilts down from looking to the man walking away to the desk, to uncover a red alarm button.
INSERT SHOT (ECU): The hand of the employee activating the silent alarm to call the guards.
HIGH ANGLE (WS): A high angle from the ceiling –maybe it can be a security camera?– showing Keanu walking towards the elevators, guards approaching him with their batons in hand.
DOLLY IN (Slow, simulating walk) Keanu POV (LS): Keanu sees the guards approaching. One of them extends his hand open to the front and shouts: “Freeze!”
Here we could create a quick sequence of insert shots, extreme close ups of the guards’ faces and their armed hands, to suggest our character is scanning them to assess the threat.
Or we can skip that, as we’ll do here, so that the spectator doesn’t see the fight coming…
This way, when the spectator sees his unexpected fighting skills on display it will come up as a big surprise, giving the scene almost the impact of a twist!
Directing is all about making these kinds of decisions ALL. THE. TIME.
Most people assume when they watch a movie that all the shots are exactly as the director had planned them to be from the very beginning of the production…. but that’s not how it works!
Making a movie is an iterative process… and many, many shots are tried that never make it to the final edit!
That’s to say: stop putting so much pressure on yourself!
You don’t need to get every shot right from the get-go!
You don’t need to pick the right angles, and the perfect matching camera movement or…
NOBODY DOES!
So forget that, and HAVE FUN telling your story!
And don’t think for a minute that you need to be wedded to your initial shot list.
As a matter of fact, the more flexible you are, and the more things you’re willing to try along the way, the better you’ll be as a director!
Ok, now with that important aside out of the way, let’s go back to our shot list: the fight.
When you have a fight, especially one showcasing a skillful fighter, a few shots come to mind:
A straight overhead high-angle shot: this shot is great if the fight is expected to last more than a few seconds, and the martial art used has really circular, dance-like movements that are better appreciated from an overhead view: think aikido or kung-fu.
If the fight will be taken from a level view instead, as if viewed from a third person’s POV, we need a wide shot to properly cover the action.
In this case, using a handheld camera effect to highlight the dynamism of the fast action is a good stylistic choice.A full 360-degree tracking shot/360 orbit centered around the our main character is another excellent choice. This is the one I’m selecting for this particular scene.
You can go for a full bullet time effect too instead of a simple 360 orbit, but this is a little too pretentious in most cases to my taste.
Ok, now that we have the camera movement we want to use for the fight figured out, let’s add it to the shot list:
SCENE 2:
TRACKING BACK (MS): Man approaching the front desk. One employee is behind the desk.
FIXED POV Employee (LS): Man approaching the front desk
FIXED OTS (Over The Shoulder) Keanu (MCU): Employee behind the desk welcomes the man: “Welcome to TANA Enterprises. May I have your name?”
FIXED OTS Employee (MCU): Man replies: “Keanu TANA”
FIXED OTS Keanu(MCU): Employee, looking confused after hearing the name, quickly checks his appointment list… “Do you have an appointment Mr. Tana?”
FIXED OTS Employee (MCU): Man replies: “No. I came to talk with the CEO, Mr. Takeda. Let him know I’m going up. He knows me.”
FIXED OTS Keanu (MCU): “Oh, I’m sorry, but I’m afraid we can’t let you in without an appointment. Do you want me to check Mr. Takeda’s availability for next month?”
FIXED POV Employee (MCU): The man leaves the desk without saying a word, and starts walking towards the elevators.
PAN LEFT (WS): The employee raises her voice and shouts: “Please stop! You can not go up without an appointment!”. The man continues walking towards the elevators.
TILT DOWN POV Employee (WS): Camera tilts down from looking to the man walking away to the desk, to uncover a red alarm button.
INSERT SHOT (ECU): The hand of the employee activating the silent alarm to call the guards.
SCENE 3:
HIGH ANGLE (WS): A high angle from the ceiling –maybe it can be a security camera?– showing Keanu walking towards the elevators, guards approaching him with their batons in hand.
DOLLY IN (Slow, simulating walk) Keanu POV (LS): Keanu sees the guards approaching. One of them extends his hand open to the front and shouts: “Freeze!”
SLOW DOLLY IN (MS): One of the guards grabs Keanu’s wrist while the other approaches him from the other side, his baton ready.
360 ARC (WS): Camera rotates 360 degrees around Keanu at normal speed as he disarms the first guard and throws him against the second guard, who also loses his balance. Both guards fall on the floor.
HIGH ANGLE POV Keanu (MS): Keanu moves the guards and put them facing down on the floor, while taking hold of their service handcuffs.
INSERT POV Keanu (ECU): Keanu’s hands secure the hands of each guard with a pair of handcuffs.
A few things worth noticing here:
First, I decided to divide that long scene into two scenes.
Some directors might not agree these are separate scenes since, theoretically, this is still the same time and location.
My argument is that the surroundings around the character have changed completely, and so have the secondary actors.
And as we’re not really filming on an actual location, this for me counts as a change of location.
Side note: In traditional filmmaking this wouldn’t be considered a change of location, since the term “location” usually refers to a place or a set where the crew must set up all the lighting, camera rigs and equipment needed to capture the coverage from that particular location.
Consequently, the actors moving just a few feet away into the building’s hall to film this fight scene, where the cameras, lighting, etc. were already set up by the crew, probably wouldn’t count as a new location.
In AI Filmmaking we don’t really work with physical locations, nor do we need to prepare camera rigs or actors. The only objective change in regard to location for us, is the need to change the prompt used with the image model in order to get a different environment.
At the end of the day, as long as it’s not costing you extra money that could otherwise be saved, what you decide to call a scene is your choice: this division of a movie in sequences and scenes only serves organizational purposes during production, so you can use whatever division makes the most sense for you and your creative workflow.
The second thing I want to bring to your attention is that the series of shots I defined above for the fight scene, and especially the shots showing our main character immobilizing the guards on the floor and handcuffing them behind their backs…
These shots would be pretty straightforward to get when working with a camera and trained actors, but are really tricky to get right with AI video at this point in time.
(6 months from now, this might well be a completely different story…)
Independently of that, we could need a few extra shots to properly show how he takes the handcuffs from the guards, and how he manages to keep them immobilized on the floor while handcuffing them.
This is the kind of thing that can easily be solved with a few cameras taking different angles while the actors execute the actions, but it’s really difficult to get right just in your head.
So once again, think of your shot list as a guide, but always feel free to add more shots as needed when you’re filming the scene and actually seeing the action!
It’s really common practice for directors and cinematographers to check their shots on location, and take any extra shots they think they might need to get proper coverage of the action.
Coverage, coverage, coverage!
Ok, back to work!
What do we need to show the spectator now?
That he takes the elevator, to floor 47.
If the elevator had other actors in it, and some interaction among them was planed, I’d call it another scene since the setting has, once again, changed.
But in this case, it’s just the end of scene 3:
SCENE 3:
HIGH ANGLE (WS): A high angle from the ceiling –maybe it can be a security camera?– showing Keanu walking towards the elevators, guards approaching him with their batons in hand.
DOLLY IN (Slow, simulating walk) Keanu POV (LS): Keanu sees the guards approaching. One of them extends his hand open to the front and shouts: “Freeze!”
SLOW DOLLY IN (MS): One of the guards grabs Keanu’s wrist while the other approaches him from the other side, his baton ready.
360 ARC (WS): Camera rotates 360 degrees around Keanu at normal speed as he disarms the first guard and throw him again the second guard, who also loses his balance. Both guards fall on the floor.
HIGH ANGLE POV Keanu (MS): Keanu moves the guards and put them facing down on the floor, while taking hold of their service handcuffs.
INSERT POV Keanu (ECU): Keanu’s hands secure the hands of each guard with a pair of handcuffs.
PAN RIGHT (WS): Keanu stands up and walks to the closest elevator.
ZOOM IN (MS→MCU): Keanu looks up.
TILT UP POV Keanu (MCU): Keanu looks up to a small camera on top of the elevator door, which projects a red laser beam into his left eye.
INSERT POV Elevator Camera (ECU): We see Keanu’s left eye illuminating in a purple tone. The shape of an electronic circuit or display becomes faintly visible for a moment inside his pupil.
INSERT (ECU): The laser beam, and camera on the wall turn green. An inviting feminine voice says: “Welcome home, Mr. TANA!”.
TILT DOWN (MS): Camera tilts down to reveal the elevator’s door opening.
SLOW DOLLY IN (MCU): We follow Keanu as he gets into the elevator and turns to face the digital panel on his left.
INSERT (ECU): Keanu’s presses the numbers “4” and “7” with his thumb on the digital touchpad.
FIXED CAMERA (ECU): Camera stays behind Keanu’s back as the elevator’s door closes.
FIXED CAMERA (CU): A close-up on Keanu’s inexpressive face. A little sneer appears in his mouth and quickly goes away, to total inexpressiveness.
PEDESTAL DOWN: The camera slowly descends from eye level to floor level, and cuts to black, giving the impression the elevator is going up as we stay on the ground floor.
Ok, I took the liberty of adding those shots with the elevator’s ID system because I feel it makes the plot –or at least, the promise of the plot– much more interesting!
That’s why I said before many times that we need to remain flexible.
Ideas will come to you all the time while filming and you need to be flexible enough to consider if it’s worth it to maybe deviate a bit –or quite a lot– from your script to make the story more impactful, or more intriguing for the viewer.
Another example: when I was thinking of the final pedestal down shot, which as you know I had in mind from the very beginning, I originally thought about keeping the camera fixed on his back while doing this shot.
But then I thought:
“Wouldn’t it make for a more interesting end of the scene if we’re to focus on his face instead, and maybe show some facial expression that foreshadows that something might be about to happen?
Like the hint of an upcoming twist, something the viewer doesn’t know yet, but now they need to know!
That’s why I cut to a front CU shot before pedestaling down.
Oh… and what about him being barefoot?
I just took that away.
My original idea was to reveal that during the last pedestal down shot, but after having gone through the entire scene I realized that him being barefoot would have been really difficult to conceal during the fight scene.
And even if we could manage to conceal it, it doesn’t really add much to the story at this point, since the spectator already knows that he knows how to fight.
The quick sneer does a lot more for us to keep the viewer engaged and eager to know what happens next.
Ok, this has been another long lesson, but I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did and learned a lot.
I tried my best to show you my entire thought process while I was creating this shot list because most people only show the final result, which I think is not that useful when you’re trying to wrap your mind around these filmmaking concepts for the first time.
I invite you to use this issue as a guide to create your own short sequence and plan your own shots.
Once you have your own shot list, you’ll be ready to start “filming” these shots!
See you next Friday, when the rubber will finally hit the road and you’ll have the chance to start seeing your vision come to life in front of your very eyes!
Until then,
Leonardo
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