Shortboard → How to use

How to make a shot list

Eight steps from a blank board to a PDF your crew can shoot from. The whole thing takes about fifteen minutes for a 30-second video, and most of that is deciding what the video actually says.

1. Set the target runtime first

   Bottom right of the board, pick the length you are making: 15s hook test, 30s Reel, 60s Short, 90s TikTok, 3:00 explainer or 8:00 YouTube. Set your speaking pace beside it — slow, normal or fast — because that is what turns your written words into seconds. Deciding the length first is the single biggest difference between a script that fits and one that gets hacked apart later.

2. Name the video

   Type a title in the toolbar. It heads the exported PDF and names the exported files. Open Details if you also want an author name and production notes on the PDF.

3. Add a card for every shot

   Press + Add shot, or Shift+Enter from inside a card to add the next one. In the shot field, write what the camera sees in one sentence — close on a packed rack, slow push in. If the sentence needs an "and", it is two shots.

   Add a type gives you the card already dressed for a job: hook, to camera, voice-over, b-roll, insert, establishing, reaction, reveal, text card, transition, call to action. Picking one sets a sensible starting length — a hook is three seconds, a piece to camera is eight — and puts that kind of shot's fields on the card. The type prints on the shot list as a short code, the way a shot list is written on paper.

4. Time the shots

   Click any timecode and type over it. All of 1:04, 64 and 1:04.5 mean the same thing, and the duration keeps itself. Leave Ripple on and stretching one shot pushes every later shot down the line, the way a real edit behaves. Turn ripple off when you want to change one shot without moving the rest.

5. Write the dialogue and voice-over

   Add spoken lines to the shot they belong to, with a speaker name so a two-hander reads as a two-hander. Use the voice-over field for narration over picture. Watch the spoken-word count in the status bar: at a normal pace it is about two and a half words per second, and the board turns that into seconds for you.

6. Pin the references you are shooting against

   Drop images straight onto the rail down the left of any card — a frame you are copying, a lighting look, the prop itself. Add as many as a shot needs; they stack in a column at their own aspect ratio, and clicking one opens it full size. Pictures are kept in this browser alongside the board and travel inside the .json export.

7. Cue the music, SFX and b-roll

   Put each cue on the card where it starts, not on the card where you thought of it. Name the actual b-roll rather than writing "b-roll here" — the specific shot is the one you will forget on the day. Location and prop fields are there for the same reason.

8. Read it back on the teleprompter

   Open Prompter and read the script aloud at your real speaking pace. This is the cheapest way to find the sentence nobody can actually say, the joke that needs a beat, and the thirty words that turned out to be forty.

9. Export it

   Save PDF writes a clean shot list — number, in and out, duration, and every field that shot uses — straight to your downloads. Export → Shot list (.csv) opens beside an editor's timeline. Rundown (.txt) pastes into a brief. Script file (.json) is the board itself, and imports back into any browser.

Open the shot board

Keyboard shortcuts

Starting from an AI draft

If you would rather edit than start at a blank card, open the AI tab in the side panel. Type one line about the video, press Copy ready-to-paste prompt, and paste it into Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini. The prompt already carries your target length and speaking pace, and it asks for the answer as a .json file in the shape this board reads — including the arithmetic most models get wrong, where a “30 second” script takes ninety seconds to say out loud.

Bring the answer back the same way you left: Import the .json file, or paste the JSON straight out of the chat window. It opens as a new script, so whatever is already on the board stays where it is. Then do the part a model cannot: read it in the Prompter, cut the shots that say the same thing twice, and re-time what is left.

Nothing is sent anywhere from this page. Shortboard has no AI in it and no server to send anything to — you carry the prompt over and carry the file back.

Things worth knowing

Your work saves itself

Every keystroke is written to your browser's local storage. There is no save button to forget and no account to make. The trade is that clearing your browser data clears your boards — so export a .json of anything you would be upset to lose.

Several scripts at once

Open Scripts to keep more than one board and switch between them. Each has its own title, target and shots.

The guided tour

The Guide button in the toolbar walks you through the board a step at a time, pointing at each control as it explains it. It runs by itself the first time you open Shortboard.

Turning the typing sound off

Typing clicks by default, because writing to camera should feel like writing. The Sound switch in the bottom-right corner turns it off, and the choice sticks.

Before you write: the 12 rules of a good shot list. Or read what Shortboard is and why it exists.