# Shot details

The shot details panel is where you name a shot and describe what's happening in it. The visualizer reads both into the prompt at render time. Small panel, big impact: the difference between a vague *"action shot"* and a specific *"low-angle hero, supercar accelerating from a stop, helicopter visible in the background"* is what determines whether the render lands.

## What it does

The auto-prompt's \[Scene Context] block reads from the scene name and description, the shot name and description, and the camera lens and aspect ratio. Of those, the shot's own metadata is the only piece that varies per shot in the same scene. A scene called "Manhattan street" with three shots called "shot-1", "shot-2", "shot-3" produces three nearly identical prompts; the same scene with shots called "low-angle hero", "wide establishing", "interior dashboard POV" produces three meaningfully different ones.

## What's in the panel

The shot details panel has two writable fields:

### Name

Short label, used for the storyboard thumbnail and for the auto-prompt. Aim for descriptive and short – "low-angle hero" rather than "the shot where the camera goes low to make the car look big".

### Description

A sentence or two on what's happening or what mood the shot has. *"Lamborghini accelerating from a stop"*, *"Helicopter circles overhead, surveying the chase"*. Reads into the auto-prompt verbatim.

## How shot details flow into the render

```mermaid
flowchart LR
    A[Shot name] --> B[Auto-prompt Scene Context]
    C[Shot description] --> B
    E[Lens] --> B
    F[Aspect ratio] --> B
    B --> G[Diffusion model]
    G --> H[Render]
```

Both fields on the panel reach the model alongside the lens and aspect ratio. Treat them as production-grade text the model will use.

## When to fill it in

The honest answer: the moment you create the shot. Fill the name first, the description second. The friction of doing it later is higher than doing it now, and unnamed shots multiply faster than you'd think.

## Common mistakes

* **Generic names.** "Shot 1", "Shot 2", "Wide". Reads identically to the model. Always describe what makes this shot different.
* **Description is the whole brief.** Keep it tight. The model honors short, specific descriptions better than rambling ones; the truncation rule from [Object details](/build/object-details.md) applies here too.

## Related

* [Shots](/compose/shots.md)
* [Lenses](/compose/lenses.md)
* [Aspect ratios and film gates](/compose/aspect-ratios-and-film-gates.md)
* [Auto-prompt](/visualize/auto-prompt.md)
* [How the visualizer thinks](/overview/concepts/how-the-visualizer-thinks.md)


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