Build a Shot List Before You Touch a Generator · Tutorials

The problem

You open the generator with an idea and a feeling. Two hours and forty credits later you have thirty variations of the same wide shot and no scene. Generators are excellent at making more of what you asked for. They are useless at telling you what you need next. That is your job, and it takes ten minutes if you do it before you start.

What a shot list is (and is not)

It is a numbered list of every shot the scene needs, with what the audience must see in each one. It is not a storyboard, not a prompt library, not a plan for the whole film. One scene, one list, ten minutes.

A handwritten shot list on a yellow legal pad with six numbered lines and small tick boxes, next to a laptop and a cup of coffee. — Paper is fine. Ten minutes, six lines, tick boxes. Illustration generated with Adobe Firefly.

Steps

Write the scene's job in one sentence. "She realises he is not coming." If you cannot write it, you are not ready to generate; you are ready to think.
List the beats. The three to six moments the audience has to witness for that sentence to land. Waiting. Checking the time. The bus arrives. The doors open. Nobody. She gets on anyway.
Give each beat a shot. For every beat, decide size (wide, medium, close-up), what is in frame, and what the audience must be able to read from it. A beat can need two shots. Most need one.
Mark what must match. Same location, same light direction, same wardrobe. Circle the shots that share a setup. These get generated together with the same references and the same look line.
Mark what moves. Which shots need motion at all? Many do not. A held still with sound is a legitimate shot. Only the ones marked "moves" go into the video generator, which saves most of your credits.
Generate in shot order, one prompt per shot, and tick them off. When you find yourself making a fifth variation of shot 3, look at the list. Shot 4 is waiting. Move on and come back only if the scene needs it.

The template

Done	#	Beat	Size	Must see	Matches	Moves?
done	1	Waiting	Wide	Her alone, bus stop, rain	Setup A	No
done	2	Checks time	Close	Phone screen, 23:47	Setup A	No
done	3	Bus arrives	Medium	Headlights hit her face	Setup A	Yes
to do	4	Doors open	Medium	Empty doorway, light inside	Setup B	Yes
to do	5	Nobody	Close	Her face, the moment it lands	Setup A	Yes
to do	6	Gets on	Wide	She steps in, doors close	Setup B	Yes

Six shots. Two setups. Four that move. That is a scene, and now every generator session has a target.

Ten minutes vs forty credits

No list

Forty credits

Thirty variations of the same wide shot. No scene.

With a list

Ten minutes

Waiting
Checks time
Bus arrives
Doors open
Nobody
Gets on

Six shots that cut together.

Worked example

Without the list, this scene typically costs an afternoon and produces four gorgeous wides. With it, the same afternoon produces six shots that cut together, because shot 5 (her face, the moment it lands) was written down before anyone got distracted by how nice the rain looked in shot 1.

Four stills in a grid: a woman waits at a bus shelter in the rain, headlights approach behind her, the bus doors open in front of her, and she steps onto the bus. — Four of the six shots as stills with one look line: waiting, bus arrives, doors open, she gets on. Generated with Adobe Firefly.

Your move

Try this today

Pick the scene you have been circling. Ten minutes, the template above, on paper if you like. Then open the generator and make shot 1 only. Tick it. Make shot 2. The list is doing the directing. You are doing the making.

Stop waiting – start creating!