Film & narrative
Documentary Shot List Template
Documentary shot lists are different: you cannot fully plan what will happen, so the list is a set of guarantees rather than a script. It exists to make sure that whatever else occurs, you leave with the shots the film cannot be cut without.
Treat everything here as a floor, not a ceiling.
Shots
27
Groups
5
Format
Checklist
The shot list
Interviews
- 01Primary interview framing, each subject
- 02Second angle, tighter
- 03Wide showing the subject in context
- 04Cutaways — hands, listening, thinking
- 05Subject in their environment, not talking
- 06Room tone, 60 seconds per location
Observational
What actually happens is the film. Roll early and stop late.
- 07Subject doing the thing the film is about
- 08Arrivals and departures
- 09Interaction with others, unprompted
- 10The routine — repeated daily actions
- 11Unplanned moments, kept rolling
- 12Long take of an unbroken activity
Place
- 13Establishing wide of every location
- 14The same location at a different time of day
- 15Journey between locations
- 16Signage, place names, geography
- 17Weather and season
- 18Interior of every significant space
Archive and artefacts
- 19Photographs filmed on a surface, with slow movement
- 20Documents, letters, records
- 21Objects that carry the story
- 22Screens showing archive footage
- 23Anything that will be hard to get access to twice
Structural
- 24Opening image candidates — three options
- 25Closing image candidates — three options
- 26Chapter or transition shots
- 27Empty frames for titles and captions
Tips for this kind of shoot
- Sixty seconds of room tone in every location. Documentary audio is assembled from fragments and room tone is the glue.
- Film the ordinary routine. It is what you will use to cover every difficult cut.
- Shoot three candidates each for your opening and closing image. You will not know which is right until the edit.
Use this list on your next shoot
Storeyz keeps your shots in story order for planning and regroups them by location for the day — then you tick them off on your phone as you get them.