How to customize shot properties, shot list, schedules and storyboard?

PRODUCER Maker Machina becomes highly customizable!

Due to your feedback we made PRODUCER more flexible and suitable for even more use cases and media workflows, from live streaming events to still photography sessions. But also taking in account that every classic film production has its own individual touch.
 

Basically everything related to a shot is now fully customizable:

• Edit and create new shot properties, rename them, manage the list of options for certain fields. All these changes are done for the entire project! The possibilities are endless. Find some examples at the end of this article.
• Customize how all these properties are shown, for every single view:
  Hide or show the properties in every schedule, shot list, call sheet or storyboard - all of these views store their own settings !
  That means even for rehearsal or recce days you can create an individual call sheet layout.
   

Change the shot list and schedule view to your needs

Reorder the columns by drag and drop the column header - could not be easier! Change the column width of each property by simply moving the blue divider line.

You can hide or show every single property of this project. Click on the "Customize properties" button...

...which opens a drawer on the right. The toggle behind each property determines if it is shown in THIS view (schedule, shot list, call sheet or storyboard).

How do I create my own custom shot property?

At the lower end of the property list in the drawer, click the option
"+ Create property".

Name your new property and select a type:

• Short plain text
• Long styled text
  Style your text bold, italic, etc. or even paste clickable links!
• Number
• Single select
  Manage a list of options to select from.
• Multi select
  Same but with the possibility to select several options at once.

Easily mange the option lists for single select or multi select fields:

Click on the "+" to add another option.
Click on an option name to rename it.
Click on the trash icon behind an option to delete it.
Reorder the options: Drag an option by its handle on the left to the new position so that the list looks how you would like it to appear in the dropdown menu.

How do I edit the shot properties?

Same same but different:

Some properties are crucial for the app to work well with its connected workflow. These props you can't edit, they are marked with a lock symbol behind the visibility toggle.

All other properties - including all properties you created yourself - are editable like you read in the section above. Tweak them to your like. For instance, if you want to add the option "Blue Hour" to the field "D/N", and so on...

How do I delete a shot property?

If a property is editable (no lock symbol shown) you can also delete it:

• Click on the property name like you would want to edit it.
• Find the "Delete property" option in red.

What you see is what you print

Important: The exported PDFs mirror which properties are visible on your screen. Check the result.
If you have a lot of properties visible, they might not fit well your paper width and everything gets squeezed.
Pro tip [coming very soon]: In this case you could add a new step (of type "List of shots"), rename it to "PDF" or so, and there tweak the settings exactly how it is best for your PDF export.

Edit shot numbers!

If you work with scenes, you now might want to rename them to "1-7", 1-8" ...
Or name an alternative shot as "23A".
 

Clone everything

Yes, our improved full project duplication will also duplicate all these customizable shot properties and view settings. To give you a kick-start setting up that next project.

 

What works differently from before?

We put a lot attention to the detail so that nearly every feature works as before.
But here is what to know:

• We discontinued the "hidden shots" feature. Former hidden shots are now visible by default. You could drag them into the "Unscheduled shots" section in the bottom part of a schedule to not appear in any shooting day/ call sheet
   
• The call sheet section "Additional information" is removed, because now you can show the fields "Props" and "Director Notes" directly inside the schedule table.
   
• Toggling the visibility of props in a storyboard changes this view for EVERY user, not just for yourself.
  Every storyboard remembers its own settings though.
   
• When you renumber the shots, the shots which you edited (yes, you can!) stay the same. Renumbering only affects the shots which have still their default number which was given when you created the shot.

• The height of a shot strip in the schedule is now flexible and adapts to the content of the fields. For instance, when you have a long description it is now fully shown, and the height extends.
  By resizing the column width of the shot image you set its size, and by this also the minimal hight of all strips.

Examples

Indicating which camera teams shoot a certain shot or scene
Type: multi select

Frame count for animation movies
Type: number

Sets inside the same studio location
Type: single select

Precise Google Maps coordinates per shot
Type: long styled text

Best take - note which was the best take right on set
Type: number or Short plain text

Managing a list of props (in this case the props of production design which appear in the scene ;-)
Type: multi select

Aspect ratio, if you work for multiple formats at the same time
Type: multi select

Fun fact:
You can also use emojis inside your property names...

 

Ideas for improvements or otherwise feedback?
We take it all: [e-mail]