Private pilot
Study film, shot by shot.
Shotbook is a film-study workspace. It puts the shots of a sequence, its playback and the screenplay side by side, so you can watch closely, see how a scene is built and write down what you observe.
Request a demo opens your email application with a prepared subject line.
Shotbook is in a private pilot. There is no public sign-up; educators and programmes can request a demonstration by email.
Workflow
A short learning journey
Three steps from a film to a study you can keep.
Choose a sequence to study
Start from a film in your library. Find the part by its words in the screenplay or the subtitles, pick a scene or a run of scenes, or mark it by time. Shotbook prepares only that interval: a playable copy and the shots inside it, proposed for your review.
Explore shots alongside playback and the screenplay
Play, seek and loop. The shot list and timeline follow playback, with linked screenplay passages alongside them. Unplaced passages remain available for you to locate. Correct a boundary, split or merge a shot, and listen to dialogue, music and effects apart.
Record observations and build a portable study
Note scale, camera movement and what you see, shot by shot and passage by passage, and mark what you have reviewed. The study is one portable project file you can export, reopen and continue.
Product preview
Three panes, one clock
The desktop workspace keeps the shot list, the player with its timeline and the screenplay side by side. On a phone the same study stacks: the player, a shot strip and the reading pane, with the shot list and the timeline one tap away.
Illustrative preview · synthetic film and screenplay
INT. FERRY STATION WAITING ROOM — NIGHT
Rain on the glass. MARA, wet through, at the ticket window. The CLERK does not look up.
She shoulders her bag. JONAH, on the bench, looks up.
EXT. FERRY STATION STEPS — CONTINUOUS
Jonah follows her out under the awning. The lamp flickers.
Select a shot to see its place on the timeline and in the screenplay.
INT. FERRY STATION WAITING ROOM — NIGHT
Rain on the glass. MARA, wet through, at the ticket window. The CLERK does not look up.
Capabilities
What Shotbook does today
Explore the capabilities available in the private pilot, the experiments under evaluation, and what is planned next.
In the private pilot
Shot detection
A pinned detector proposes cuts, fades and dissolves over the prepared interval. Proposals are reviewed on a zoomable timeline before they replace anything, and a shot you placed or corrected is never overwritten by a rerun.
Detection is a proposal with named metrics, never a guarantee; boundaries are yours to confirm.
In the private pilot
Screenplay-linked navigation and sequence selection
Import a text PDF or EPUB screenplay with the film’s subtitles. Shotbook suggests timing links for dialogue and shows the supporting cues; you confirm or correct the links. Linked passages within the prepared interval support jumping to the film and following playback. Choose the part to study by its words, by scene or by time.
Alignment needs same-language subtitles and a text screenplay; scanned screenplays and speech recognition are outside the pilot, and every suggested link stays yours to confirm.
In the private pilot
Study notes and annotations
Record scale, camera movement, tags and notes for each shot; anchor study notes to a passage, a moment or both. Scale and movement have explicit review states, and AI suggestions stay separate until accepted.
Notes belong to one person’s study; sharing and comments between people are not part of the pilot.
In the private pilot
Project portability
Export your study as a versioned JSON project and your notes as Markdown. Continue in another browser by reconnecting the film and any required source documents; media files travel separately.
Shotbook reconstructs no editing project and exports no editor formats such as FCPXML.
In the private pilot
Audio-stem exploration
The original mix is separated into dialogue, music and effects lanes that play in step with the picture, with mute, solo and gain per lane, so a sound bridge can be heard across a cut.
Separation runs on the pilot host’s GPU and is a study aid, never a lossless decomposition of the mix.
In the private pilot
On every screen, in two languages
Desktop, tablet and phone layouts keep the film, the current shot and the screenplay together, with one player through every rotation. The interface is available in English and Chinese.
Layouts are verified in browser emulation of phones and tablets.
Experimental
AI-assisted shot analysis
A local vision-language model reads each shot once and suggests its scale and camera movement, with the sampled frames shown as evidence. Suggestions stay pending until you accept or reject them, and no confidence scores are shown.
Readings are drafts and can be wrong; a staged reading that keeps what the frames show apart from what the screenplay suggests is under evaluation. Cloud models are off by default and are never used without an explicit, approved plan.
Planned
Classrooms and assignments
Shared classrooms, teacher administration and assignment management, so a group can study the same sequence with their own notes.
Planned; not available in the pilot.
Planned
Accounts, uploads and media connectors
Public accounts, self-service uploads, a connector for your own media library and billing are future service work.
Planned; the pilot reads authorised films in place on the host that runs it.
Who it is for
Educators, learners, filmmakers
Shotbook is made for close study of one sequence at a time.
Film and theatre educators
Prepare one sequence for a session with its shots, linked screenplay passages and your notes ready to show.
- Prepare a sequence with the screenplay beside the cuts
- Show the three panes in a seminar and step through the shots
- Keep a study per sequence and return to it next term
Students and independent learners
Watch a sequence as often as you need and record what you notice in your own words.
- Loop a shot or a passage without losing your place
- Name scale and movement shot by shot and mark what you have reviewed
- Keep a portable study you can continue later
Filmmakers studying craft
Read how a scene is built: the choices of scale and movement, the cut points and the sound.
- Compare scale and movement choices across a scene
- Read the cut points against the dialogue
- Listen to dialogue, music and effects apart
Classroom use is a potential use: shared classrooms, teacher administration and assignment management are planned and not yet available. Today each study belongs to one person.
FAQ
Questions and answers
Who is Shotbook for?
Students, educators and filmmakers who want to study a film sequence closely: the shots, the cuts, the playback and the screenplay together, with their own observations recorded shot by shot.
Is the application publicly available?
Not yet. This website presents the product; access to the application is a private pilot. There is no public sign-up, account or download.
Does Shotbook provide films?
No. Shotbook ships no films, screenplays or subtitles. You study materials you have the right to use, and you are responsible for having those rights.
Will users be able to bring local files or their own media library?
In the pilot, Shotbook reads films the person has authorised in place, read-only, from a local disk or a mounted share on the host that runs it. Public self-service uploads, a connector to a home media library, user accounts and billing are future service work and are not available.
What role does AI play?
A supporting one. A local model can propose the scale and camera movement of a shot with the sampled frames as evidence, and proposals stay pending until a person accepts them. These features are experimental, can be wrong, and never replace your own reading. Cloud models are off by default.
How can an educator request a demonstration?
Write to adrian@sensusai.io. The Request a demo button opens your email application with a prepared subject line; tell us about your course or programme and what you would like to see.
Contact
Request a demonstration
During the private pilot, Shotbook is shown by demonstration. Educators, programmes and filmmakers can write to us, and we reply by email.
Opens your email application with the subject “Shotbook demo request” addressed to adrian@sensusai.io.
Shotbook is made by Sensus AI. sensusai.io