Can you block a scene in 30 seconds?
Shot Designer makes it ridiculously easy to block complex scenes, complete with Camera Diagram, Animation, Shot List, Storyboards, Director's Viewfinder, and Sync & Team Sharing.
Neither Camera Diagrams, Shot Lists, Storyboards, or Animation by themselves give you a satisfying understanding of camera-blocking -- you have to use them together. Shot Designer gives you a superior understanding of your scene, and is the ultimate Director's creativity tool.
A Camera Diagram That Makes Itself
Shot Designer dramatically speeds up the Director's process of making camera diagrams.
Shot Designer is FAST. The app knows how Directing works and does most of the work for you -- like automatically moving cameras when you move characters.
Shot Designer is fast enough that you can use it with even with actors waiting!
A Shot List That Writes Itself
The integrated Shot List is tied into the diagram and writes itself while you work. Edit shots intuitively in the diagram, not in a spreadsheet.
Everything in the app is connected. Any changes you make in the diagram update the shot list, and any changes you make in the shot list change the diagram.
Animate Action in Real-Time
Animate your characters and cameras to move around your diagram in real-time. Previsualize the rhythm of a scene by seeing it play out.
Animating takes literally seconds, and your scene stays flexible, so you can keep changing it.
Use Storyboards In Your Blocking
Storyboards are great for action-sequences, but blocking drama is about coverage, and that's easier to do in a diagram.
With Shot Designer, you can bring one of the main benefits of storyboards back into your camera diagram, which is seeing what camera-angles look like.
Tip: Instead of drawing whole storyboard-sequences, just draw the keyframes that tell the story, then put it all together in the diagram. It's freer and funner.
Integrated Director's Viewfinder
Use the integrated Professional Director's Viewfinder as both a storyboard replacement, and the ultimate location-scouting tool for Directors. Build your scene blocking and try out scenes while you're on location!
The Director's Viewfinder supports all major camera formats, so you get a perfect record of the exact lens used for a shot.
Other Features
- Integrated Set Designer for building floor plans.
- Integrated Lighting Designer for DPs, with lighting symbols provided by
Ari Golan of Atomic Imaging Studios Chicago. - Import production drawings as backgrounds and block on top of them.
- Factory Templates of pre-made camera setups for any situation.
- Make your own templates as starting points for new scenes.
- Large and growing prop/furniture library. Email us requests, we'll build them.
- Scene Freeze: Experiment easily by taking snapshots you can return to (Pro).
- PDF/JPG/Excel export and emailing of Camera Diagrams and Shot Lists (Pro).
- Unlimited Folder Structure for organizing scenes (Pro).
Roadmap
We have lots of things planned for Shot Designer. It is in active development, and since we're actually building this tool because we're sick and tired of not having it, you can be sure that Shot Designer will have a long life.
Here are a few of the things we're planning. There are many small things we're not mentioning, and some major things are also not mentioned because they're quite simply really good ideas.
- 3D Animation. A 3D layer for Shot Designer is in development, but Directing Actors is our #1 priority until it's out. After that, Shot Designer will get new development resources, and we'll implement our dream features -- remember that we use Shot Designer ourselves, and we're just as eager to get the features as you are. The 3D layer will render your blocking in 3D in real-time. We kind of want that feature too!
- Script Integration / Voice Recording / Speech Synthesis. While Shot Designer is a night-and-day improvement to playing around with scenes, it's logical that you need to be able to bring in your script and time camera and character action to the script. That requires the ability to not just bring in the script, but actually edit it there, because it's Shot Designer's fundamental philosophy that the scene must stay flexible. You also need to be able to record the lines with actors, and you need to speech synthesize if you don't have actors. And then you need a deeper timeline so you can get to time action to the script with more granularity. Big project, but very cool indeed. Some of the code is already in there, just hidden for now.
Free / Pro Version
Shot Designer is free to use on a single scene at a time. $19.99 Pro Upgrade adds File Management, Mac/PC Pro Version, Sync & Team Sharing, PDF/Excel Export and more.
Download Mac/PC:
Download iOS/Android:
User Comments
"A great App for Directors and DP's alike! Lightning fast shot designs. Don't be without it on the set."
John Badham, Director, Saturday Night Fever, WarGames
"Excellent tool for planning my scenes fast!"
Clint Reagan, Previz Supervisor, Indiana Jones, Hunger Games, Prometheus, GI Joe
"Most film apps fail to do the iPad justice. Not Shot Designer-one of only three excellent apps for Directors- this app is intuitive, productive, and indispensable. Only $20? A miracle. Keep up the great work Hollywood Camera Work.!"
iPhoneRiser (via App Store)
"I teach fiction film at my college in upstate NY. My students are required to use Shot Designer to plan and block their shots. The integration of all its various functions make it easier for them to catch mistakes before going into production. We are anxiously waiting for the addition of sound which seems to be in the works. Being able to upload a soundtrack to create an animatic would simply be excellent. Congrats on a great tool."
Sunithaya (via App Store)
"I'm blown away by the versatility of this app. Exporting shot lists, camera and character motion, scene layout imports, - it is phenomenal!"
Supa Dupa Quitta (via App Store)
"Powerful and incredibly useful. Well done! This has made designing and communicating with the rest of the crew so easy! Buy this app!"
Gridlewis (via App Store)
"A lot of thought went into the software app to utilize current technology and make it as easy as possible while providing significant value to the finished product. Best way to put your plan and ideas into a visual format that can be understood by those involved. Provides a way for the shot designer to work through a plan to shoot the storyboard and to be able to share it quickly, clearly and easily. Best solution available!"
Tim Delaney (via App Store)
"As a professional DP, this is the single most important app on my IPad. Invaluable blocking tool and means of communicating with directors."
Lone eyeball (via App Store)
"Well done developers! Finally an app that is an intelligent and user friendly in every way imaginable. The tutorial video again shows the genius behind this design and the overall support for this one of a kind app itself. Really love how the cameras change position determined by the line of access. Will be using this a lot in pre-production. Thanks again!! 5 Stars easily."
Scotty Marcelo (via App Store)
