How to write a shot list for a photoshoot

What actually belongs on a shot list

A shot list tells anyone reading it cold exactly what to capture and in what order. That means specifying the frame rather than describing it in prose: size and angle, orientation, focal length and aperture where they matter, the camera body if more than one is in use, the kind of lighting, and whatever wardrobe, prop or styling note applies to that exact shot. Every one of those means the same thing whether the shot is a photograph or a clip, which is why both belong on one list. A clip says which it is, and adds four things a photograph never has to answer: what the camera does, the frame rate, whether sound is being recorded, and how long the delivered clip runs.

Two more fields pull more weight than they look like they should. A priority — must-have against nice-to-have — so you have an honest answer ready for what gets dropped if the day runs long. And an estimated duration, so your list can become a schedule rather than staying a list. The rest of the day is worked out from both of them.

Two ways to cut the list, and they are not interchangeable

Almost every shot list that goes wrong goes wrong here, by treating groups and tags as the same kind of thing. They answer different questions.

A group is the shape of the day

A group holds a shot once and once only — a shot is in one group or none — and the groups run in the sequence you actually intend to shoot them. “Feed room”, then “stable”, then “prep”, then “ridden” is the day itself, written down, rather than a way of filing things. Because the sequence is stored and the letter, count and running time for each group are worked out from the shots inside it, reordering the groups relabels and retimes the whole sheet — nobody goes back and renumbers section C to section B by hand.

A tag is a second, independent cut across the same shots

A tag carries nothing but its own name, and a shot can wear several. Where a group asks “what order do we shoot in”, a tag asks a different question, after the fact — “which product line is this”, “which folder does this belong in for delivery”. A shot tagged “hero” and “SS26 knitwear” can sit wherever its place in the day puts it, and still turn up in the right place when the list is re-sorted by tag for the edit or the client hand-off.

Muddling the two produces a shot list that is either an unordered pile with labels, or an ordered list that cannot be re-cut for delivery without physically moving rows. Keep them separate and the same list does both jobs.

A worked example

Below is a shortened shot list for a small commercial product-and-lifestyle shoot — three groups, tags cutting across them, and a duration on every row. This is the level of detail worth aiming for: enough that someone who was not in the brief meeting could run the day from it. For a full one on paper, with every column filled in, see the shot list template.

Read the tag column sideways and the delivery cut appears without moving a single row: everything tagged “Hero” is shots 2, 4, 5, 6 and 8, whichever group they sit in; everything tagged “Website” is 4, 5 and 7. Read the group column top to bottom and the shoot day appears instead: flat lays first while the studio is lit for the hero set, the hero set second, the model last once hair and makeup have had the whole morning.