The rules for each shot

Each shot in your shot plan follows the research default, with named exceptions written where they apply.

The rules

• Keep one world per shot. Look, light, hair, product and time of day hold inside the shot; changes happen across a cut. A change of world inside one generation is a treatment choice only (a designed match cut or transition, or the change-of-view frames), with a fallback real cut written in the plan.

• Hold the world rules in every shot. Mark the shot where a rule breaks "break" in Director notes (see Writing the treatment → World rules and the planned break).

• Design one camera move with a dose [proven]. Write its type, direction and rig; a dose ("a slow push of 1 m over 6 s"); its trigger; where it starts and lands, each as one composition clause (subject placement, foreground, what each edge cuts); and its dramatic job. A second move is a cut. The plan writes the decision, not the prompt (see Camera and lens → The camera dose).

• Write one eyeline line per character whose eyes read [proven] for the craft: the side of the lens, the target, the height, and how tight. Matched singles look to opposite sides of the lens for the whole exchange (see Performance → The eyeline).

• Name each locked frame as an exception [proven], in the camera column: LOCKED (named exception: reaction close-up | reveal | comedy staged in the wide | VFX or live plate | long take | observational beat), where VFX means visual effects. Write the life inside the frame (a small new event every 1–2 s) and the live environment.

• Meet the motion standard (decided; its home is Video with Seedance → Take selection and review): every shot stunning and dynamic next to the treatment, the anchors and the plan, with camera, acting, body, hair, hands, face, the product's texture and light moving together; each shot distinct in acting and camera, yet fitting the rest. A slow or static camera where the plan wants motion fails, whatever else holds. A named lock is judged as a lock, with the talent and the place still alive.

• Keep every speaking shot gently moving (decided), Arabic included. During the words the camera breathes or pushes very slowly, written large enough to show. Bigger moves go before or after the line, inside the lip-sync limits: the face within about 45° of the lens, the head readable, no whip. Lock the camera only where you choose it for that shot, written LOCKED (named exception: director's choice, {reason}). Plan a scene with touch between two speakers as a silent master shot plus speaking shots at real cuts (see Speaking shots and lip sync → The camera during speech).

• Name the reference for the bar: each scene names, in Director notes, the award reference its frames and takes are compared with (see The quality bar → The reference bar).

• Fix the location and keep the motion live (decided): the set never morphs, and the talent stays animated in every shot, locked shots included. The Location cell names each shot's background motions: 2–4 natural ones (traffic, crowds, water, lights) outdoors or wherever the place has them, 0–1 in a quiet room. Check every take for a frozen background. Give each visible extra one task of their own (see Making it feel real → The place stays alive).

• Keep real time by default. Design slow motion inside the shot, and never let it share a shot with real time. Declare edit retimes in the cut list.

• End each shot for its planned cut (decided): moving through the last frame when the edit cuts on motion; settling when it cuts after a line or a packshot. A scene's last shot lands on its "ends when" image.

• Stay inside the limits per generation: at most three acting characters unless a staging map drives the staging; at most two hand roles per shot; contact that must read gets its own insert.

• Join into the next shot with one of the four default joins [proven]:

  1. a hard cut to a clearly new size and angle;

  2. a transition made by a camera move inside a shot;

  3. a transition built inside one multi-shot generation;

  4. a cut on action or shape that still works as a plain cut if the match is imperfect.

• Plan other joins only where the treatment asks (a match cut, a hidden cut, an empty-frame beat, an extension, a generated-to-live join), each with a fallback real cut written in the plan.

• Never answer "smoother transitions" with frame-matched bridge clips.

• The in-between fill (decided) is the one exception to that rule: a generated middle that joins two approved ends of one continuous shot, with nothing outside the gap touched. Plan it only when the film's core idea is one continuous shot, approved in the treatment. Check both seams at full size, every frame on either side, and read the fill's price before you use it (see Planning, budgets and takes → Costs and the estimate; the method is in Video with Seedance → Joins, endings, extension and the video edit).

Restraint words in a shot's text return stills, and a sparse prompt with references comes back stiff: write the move with its dose, and name every beat.

The shot list's columns

The columns run in this order, one row per shot. Arabic and English never share a cell.

The plan's standard

The plan is internal, so its standard is yours to hold. Solid is the minimum.

Sources

• Higgsfield Academy (courses) (dialogue splits); JOEY, @joeysnoisygroup (project), and Tigran Mutafyan of Higgsfield's studio (staging maps).