Here’s the basic rundown of what the free version of the app allows you to design (and why it’s so cool):
- Camera placement and angle of view
- Character placement and angle of orientation
- Animation of camera/character paths — multi-step blocking, akin to storyboarding ‘keyframes’ in a moving shot
- Shotlists — items are easily connected to points in the diagram
- Importing storyboards — also easily connected to points in the diagram
- Director’s Viewfinder — uses your mobile device’s camera to visualize various focal lengths
- Built-in Set Designer — customization of floor-plans
- Lighting Designer — light type/placement and orientation
- Pre-made Plots — easily load and modify common setups
- iOS and Android compatible — includes smart-phones (where ‘Pocket-Blocking’ truly applies)
- Mac and PC compatible — but not in direct connection with your mobile (see Pro options below)
These videos demonstrate how elegantly each of these features is implemented, and in a design perfect for mobile situations. I gave the Mac desktop version a shot, and it is indeed as intuitive, simple, and easy to use as it seems (although, for a computer with a keyboard, it may be too simple — more on this below).
- If all of this seems too good to be true, here’s the list of things you can only do with the Pro version:
- ‘Scene Freeze’ — allows you to snapshot a configuration you can return to if you want to, say, experiment and revert
- Exporting to PDF, MS Excel, or JPG, plus emailing your layouts and shotlists
- Unlimited Folder Structure to get as complex with your planning as you need
That’s right — you can’t export to any of those formats without purchasing the upgrade. In fact, with the free version, you can’t actually save your scene in any traditional sense (short of taking a screen-cap of it). So even though you can run Shot Designer for free on both your PC and your mobile, you can’t transfer files back and forth between them — and again, you can only work on one scene at a time.
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