Scenes

What is a scene?

A scene in Studio Color corresponds to a scene heading in your script (e.g. INT. KITCHEN - DAY). Each scene has a scene number, a name, INT/EXT designation, time of day, one or more locations, and a production status.

Scenes are the connective tissue of the app — props, equipment, schedule days, and shots all link back to scenes. The Creative Hub takes this further, making scenes the center of cross-department collaboration between camera, art, and the director.

Scene list and gallery views

Gallery view (default)

Gallery cards show a photo from the scene’s location, dimmed, with the scene number and name overlaid in large text. Hover to see the card brighten and lift. Cards also show INT/EXT, time of day, and counts for props, shots, and equipment.

List view

Toggle to list view using the grid/list icons in the top-right. List view shows a compact table with scene number, name, INT/EXT, time of day, location, and status.

Search and filters

Use the search bar to find scenes by number, name, or description. Click a status pill to filter to just scenes with that status.

Creating scenes

Via the Script Analyzer (recommended)

The fastest way to populate your scene list is to run the Script Analyzer. It reads your script PDF and proposes all scenes — including their locations, scene numbers, INT/EXT designations, times of day, and script day information — which you confirm in the Breakdown Review (Step 2) before they populate your scene list. In that Step 2 review you can also insert a blank scene between any two scenes (the Add scene button that appears on hover) and permanently remove scenes you don’t want — a manually added scene has no script text, so it gets no auto-detected props in Step 3.

Manually

Scenes can also be created and edited manually from the scene list. This is useful for additional scenes added after the initial breakdown, or for projects without a locked script yet.

Scene statuses

Every scene moves through a status lifecycle as the production progresses:

• Unscheduled — Default state. Not yet assigned to a shoot day.
• Scheduled — Placed on a specific shoot day in the schedule.
• Shot — Principal photography is complete.
• Cut — Removed from the script or production plan.
• Completed — Fully wrapped, including pickups.

Scene detail workspace

Click any scene to open its full detail workspace. The workspace is organized into tabs that cover every aspect of a scene’s production:

• Overview — The scene’s shoot window, location photos, overheads, and a link to the location record.
• Script — The portion of the script for this scene, with inline highlighting and margin comments. Select any text to leave a comment or tag it as a breakdown item.
• Breakdown — Every field on the breakdown sheet, editable inline: scene details plus cast, stunts, props, wardrobe, and the rest. Edits save automatically and sync to the exported PDF.
• Mood Board — Upload photos, paste links, or reuse an existing image via From Gallery (see Photo Gallery). Location photos on the Overview tab can be picked from the gallery too. Click any mood board image to open it in a full-screen lightbox, and use the arrow keys to page between images.
• Art Notes — Draft and publish art department notes for this scene.
• Camera Notes — Draft and publish camera department notes for this scene.
• Shot List — All shots planned for this scene (shot number, description, type, angle, movement, lens, status). Includes a link to the full Shot List editor in the Camera department.
• Elements — All props, set dec, camera equipment, and shots linked to this scene.
• Activity — A change log of everything that has happened on this scene.

Keyboard navigation

Move between scenes without leaving the detail workspace. Press ← to jump to the previous scene and → for the next, following the same scene-number order as the scene list. The matching Prev and Next buttons in the top bar do the same thing and show the neighbouring scene numbers.

Your current tab carries over, so you can page through every scene’s Script, Breakdown, or notes in sequence. The arrow keys are ignored while you’re typing in a field or when a dialog such as a photo lightbox is open.

Department notes with rich text

Camera and Art each have their own rich-text notes tab on every scene. The editor supports headings, bold, italic, bullet and numbered lists, checklists, and links — giving you a full document-editing experience inside the scene.

Notes start as a draft — visible only to the author and admins — while they’re being worked through. When ready, click Publish to share with the whole team. Unpublish at any time to return to editing privately.

If the scene’s script text changes after these notes were written, an amber Script changed since these notes chip appears. Click What changedto see a diff of the script since you last reviewed it, then Acknowledge to clear the chip. Your note prose is never auto-edited — you decide what to update.

Anchored comments (Google Docs-style)

Both Camera Notes and Art Notes support inline anchored comments — just like Google Docs. Select any text in a note and an Add comment button appears. Click it to open a comment thread pinned to that specific passage.

• The selected text is highlighted in amber in the note body.
• A comment card appears in the right margin, vertically aligned with the highlight.
• Click the highlight or the card to open the full thread with replies and @mentions.
• Click Resolve on a thread to mark it done (the highlight greys out). Reopen any time.

Script text

Each scene stores the portion of the script that makes it up, extracted automatically when the Script Analyzer runs. When a new draft is imported, scenes are matched by the contentof their text — not their scene number — so a renumbered scene keeps its identity, its comments, and all of its linked data. Only scenes whose text actually changed get a new revision.

When a scene has more than one revision, the Script tab shows a Script updated to v4banner. Toggle Show changes to see an added/removed diff against the previous revision.

During a re-import, Step 2 of the Breakdown Review shows a change summary (unchanged / renumbered / revised / rewritten / new / cut) and a View changes toggle on every revised or rewritten scene, so you can confirm the exact old-vs-new text before it’s committed. This is how you verify the script is accurate and current rather than assuming it.

The script page is normally set to a comfortable reading width. Click Widen in the Script tab header to let it fill the available space, and Narrow to return to the reading width. Your choice is remembered on this device.

The script text is read-only, but you can annotate it just like Camera and Art notes: select any passage and an Add comment button appears. Creating a comment highlights the selected text and opens an anchored thread in the right-hand margin, where anyone on the project can reply (with @mentions), resolve, or reopen. Script comments are visible to the whole team immediately — there is no draft/publish step.

When the script text changes, existing comments are automatically re-anchored to the new text. A comment that can no longer be placed with confidence moves to an Unanchored comments section rather than disappearing — from there you can Re-attach it to a new passage, resolve it, or delete it. Nothing is ever silently lost.

Linking scenes

Scenes and locations

A scene has one primary location plus any number of extra locations. The primary is the one that drives the schedule, call sheets, and the breakdown-sheet header; extras cover scenes that shoot in more than one place. You assign locations from the confirmed location list during Step 2 of the Breakdown Review, and can change them later from the scene’s Overview tab or its Breakdown tab. In the location picker the starred chip is the primary — click a star to promote another location, the dropdown to add one, or the × to remove one.

The primary assignment is resolved from the scene’s slug heading (its normalized location key), so it stays correct across drafts even if the AI renames the place. Scenes always link to the specific leaf location (for example “Alice’s House - Porch”), not its parent. Extra locations are added by hand — the script analyzer only ever suggests the one primary location per scene.

Scenes and props / set dec

Props and set decoration are visible on the Elements tab, pulled from the prop management system. Set decoration uses the same system as props with a different category.

Scenes and equipment

Camera equipment linked to this scene appears on the Elements tab. Manage links from the camera equipment detail page.

Scenes and the schedule

When building the shoot schedule, scenes are placed onto specific days. Once scheduled, a scene’s status updates to Scheduled.

A scheduled scene shows a Shoot window card on its Overview tab: the day it shoots, the date, and a start–end time you can set, like 11:00 AM–2:00 PM. This is the same window you edit on the schedule’s Projected day, and the two stay in sync — a range set here moves the scene on the board, and one set on the board reads back here. A scene split across more than one day gets a window per placement, and until a scene is on the board the card links straight to the stripboard to schedule it.

Current Scene — the live on-set view

During production, the Current Scene feature broadcasts to the entire crew what is being filmed at any given moment. Find it at the top of the project sidebar.

Deleting a scene

Only super admins and the project owner can delete a scene. Open the scene detail page and use the Delete button in the top bar. A confirmation modal appears and, to prevent accidents, you must type delete before the delete button becomes active.

Permissions