An AI-powered shot list automation platform that transforms film scripts into comprehensive production breakdowns. Designed for CineGach Studios in Los Angeles, California, Cineshots.AI cuts pre-production time by up to 90%, enabling Directors of Photography to focus on creative decisions rather than mundane prep work.
Quick context before the deep dive
Shot listing is manual, slow, and error-prone, stealing time from creative decision-making.
Lead Product Designer (0→1) partnering with the CEO and dev team to define workflows, IA, and UI.
Early-stage AI (Jan 2023), film-set realities, and a hard requirement to keep humans in the loop.
Designed a system reporting up to 90% pre-production time saved and used on productions for major streaming platforms.
"Cinematographers and filmmakers face common challenges when creating and managing Shot Lists: It's a time-consuming and manual process, with potential for human error, leaving less time, energy and budget for creativity."
What if you could just skip to that creative part?
Back in January 2023, when AI film possibilities were just emerging, I was brought on to the Cineshots team by CineGach Studios to tackle exactly this problem. The shot list process in pre-production and on-set was entirely manual, time-consuming, and prone to human error.
Directors of Photography usually spend dozens of hours breaking down scripts scene by scene, manually planning shot types, camera movements, and equipment needs - work that could take days or even weeks for a feature-length production. That was time and energy stolen from the creative work they actually wanted and needed to focus on.
A Shot List is a crucial filmmaker's tool - it logistically lays out the shooting schedule but also acts as an on-set "bible" to maintain creative integrity when the plan (99% of the time) goes unexpected.
A strong filmmaker is defined by their ability to pivot with challenges and achieve efficient, maximum creative results with available resources (there are never enough). With constantly changing variables, good preparation improves the quality of your improvisation and the final product.
There are many pre-production tools out there, but at the time none were tailored to the Cinematographer's creative process. Cineshots.AI was the solution to these problems.
Design and build from the ground up a revolutionary AI-powered SaaS platform that would allow DPs, and even directors, to upload scripts, automatically analyze every scene, generate recommended shot lists with camera movements and equipment suggestions, and intelligently group scenes into efficient shooting days, all while maintaining full manual customization capabilities to keep the human in the loop at every step.
Say goodbye to the late-night hours spent in manual pre-visualization.
Save time and focus on the most important part—your vision and process.
I worked closely with the CEO and development team across two distinct phases over 6 months.
The first three months were dedicated to understanding the problem space deeply. This included testing early concepts, conducting interviews with working Directors of Photography, gathering feedback through user testing sessions, running A/B tests on interaction patterns, and validating our assumptions about the workflow before writing production code. Because I had prior experience scoring films, working as a sound mixer on-set, and directing my own short films, I was already familiar with filmmaking workflows and on-set constraints — which gave me a practical advantage during research and interviews.
With validated concepts in hand, we moved into intensive design and development. I led high-fidelity prototyping and interaction refinement, and collaborated closely with engineering during implementation to realize the shot-list editor and integration points. We iterated rapidly on interaction details, considered performance implications for large scripts, and defined production-ready export formats for call sheets and rental houses. Post-launch we monitored usage, addressed edge cases, and rolled out incremental improvements based on real-world feedback. The result was a polished platform that launched to immediate adoption; the tool has since been used on productions for SHOWTIME, Prime Video, and Tubi.
The heart of Cineshots.AI is the shot list interface: a data-dense but navigable table that gives DPs complete control over every shot in their production.
Scenes are grouped by location and time of day. Shots nest under their parent scenes with clear visual hierarchy through indentation and color coding.
Each shot includes type (CU, MS, WS), camera movement, description, equipment needs, and custom notes fields for DP and Director annotations.
Select multiple shots or entire scenes at once to batch-assign equipment, move to different days, or export for call sheets.
Upload any standard script format and watch as AI extracts scenes, characters, locations, and dramatic beats, converting narrative text into structured production data.
Generate complete shot recommendations with camera types, movements, and compositions based on scene context and industry best practices.
AI groups scenes into efficient shooting days based on location, cast availability, and equipment needs, optimizing your production schedule automatically.
Get gear suggestions based on your shots with local rental pricing. The system knows what equipment covers the most ground for your specific needs.
Every AI suggestion is fully editable. Add, remove, or modify shots, change camera movements, adjust day assignments, you're always in creative control.
Export shot lists, day breakdowns, and equipment orders in formats ready for call sheets, rental houses, and production coordination.
Film professionals need to see a lot of information at once. Rather than hiding data behind multiple clicks, I designed dense but scannable tables with clear visual hierarchy. Color coding, consistent spacing, and thoughtful typography make complex data digestible.
New users start with AI-generated suggestions and can customize as they learn the system. Advanced features like bulk operations and custom equipment lists reveal themselves as users develop confidence.
The dark theme with purple accents creates an environment that feels native to film professionals, echoing the color grading tools and editing software they already use daily.
AI suggestions are always labeled as suggestions, never presented as final decisions. Users can see the reasoning, modify freely, and maintain creative ownership throughout the process.
Cineshots.AI taught me that AI tools succeed when they augment human expertise rather than replacing it. The Directors of Photography using this tool are masters of their craft. They don't need AI to tell them how to shoot a scene. They need AI to handle the tedious logistics so they can focus on creative decisions.
The 3-month research phase was invaluable. By testing concepts with real DPs before building, we avoided costly pivots and launched a product that immediately found its audience on major streaming productions.
The best AI tools feel like collaborators, not replacements. By keeping human expertise at the center and using AI to accelerate the boring parts, Cineshots.AI delivered time savings without sacrificing the creative control that professionals demand.