For scripted creators
Write the shot list. Then find out if you got it.
Planning is the part you already do. The part nobody has is the check afterwards: reading the footage back against the outline and finding, while a reshoot is still cheap, the line you never said and the shot you never got.
- I wrote the outline, shot it, and only found the missing shot in the edit.
- I had the shot list on my phone and still came home without half of it.
- The structure looked right on paper and sagged in the middle on screen.
- I rewrote the running order three times after the footage was already in.
How it goes
- 1 Build the spine An ordered beat sheet with intent per beat, a script where you want one, and a shot list that comes out of the beats rather than being kept in a separate doc that drifts.
- 2 Shoot to it The shot list travels with the project. Nothing to reconcile afterwards, because the list and the plan are the same object.
- 3 Get the coverage check the same evening It reads the footage against the plan and answers two questions: did you get every shot, and did you actually say the lines the story depends on. Both, with the clip and timecode as receipts.
A video that went exactly this way
This reportage was planned to the beat before a single clip existed: the spine was written on 13 July, the first clip shot on the 14th. The case study shows all eight beats, the verdict it got before publishing, and the one planned beat that never made it to air.
Questions
Is this a script writer?
It will draft, but that is not the point of it. The value is the loop: a plan that survives into the shoot, and a check afterwards that tells you where the footage and the plan disagree.
What does the coverage check actually check?
Two things. Shot coverage: every shot on the list, matched against clips you brought back. And the narrative must-says: the lines the story needs in order to land, checked against the transcript rather than your memory of saying them.
What if the video changes while I am shooting?
That is normal and the plan is editable throughout. The check always runs against the current spine, so a beat you dropped on purpose does not come back as a missing shot.
Does it replace my editor or my NLE?
Neither. It never applies a cut. It hands off a ready-to-cut project with the structure already mapped, and the editing happens where it always did.
If you shoot first and work the story out afterwards, start at the other door: finding the video in footage you already have. Same app, different way in.
Try it on the footage you already have.
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