# Shots

A shot is a saved camera framing inside a scene. Add, duplicate, delete, reorder. Each shot remembers its camera position, lens, aspect ratio, and animation timeline.

## Watch

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbS5ml0Uzx4>

![Compose mode with multiple shots visible in the Storyboard at the bottom, each shot card showing duration and a thumbnail](/files/mdbtPS3vrvqDkcIgzolF)

## What it does

Setting up a shot in a previs pipeline means manually keying camera transforms, naming them by hand, and remembering which file holds which take. Intangible's shots are a built-in primitive – click the camera **+** icon below the viewport, the current framing becomes a saved shot in the storyboard at the bottom of the screen. From then on, click the shot thumbnail and the camera snaps to that framing.

The thing that catches new users: animation in Compose mode is bound to the active shot. Move an object after creating a shot, and the move is recorded as part of that shot's timeline. Move an object in Build mode, and the move applies to the scene globally. See [Animation and shot time](/overview/concepts/animation-and-shot-time.md) for the why.

## How to use it

The take-shot control is the camera **+** icon directly below the camera viewport. Click it to capture the current framing as a shot, the same gesture as a physical camera. The storyboard with thumbnails sits across the bottom of the screen.

1. **Add a shot.** Click the camera **+** icon below the viewport. The current viewport framing becomes Shot 1 with a thumbnail in the storyboard.
2. **Frame the shot.** Move the camera as needed – free cam or fine-tune (see [Camera controls](/compose/camera-controls.md)). The framing updates live in the thumbnail.
3. **Duplicate.** Use the ellipsis (⋯) menu on a shot card → **Duplicate**. The new shot inherits the previous shot's camera position as a starting point.
4. **Reorder.** Drag a shot thumbnail left or right in the storyboard to change its position within the scene.
5. **Delete.** Ellipsis (⋯) menu on a shot card → **Delete**. Confirms before removing.
6. **Set a lens.** Each shot has its own lens choice – defaults to the scene-camera lens but overrides freely. See [Lenses](/compose/lenses.md).
7. **Add details.** The shot details panel has Name and Description fields. These feed the auto-prompt at render time, so a shot named "low-angle hero" with a description of "Lamborghini accelerating from a stop" gives the visualizer specific context.

### Sequencing rule worth knowing

Make the shot first, then move objects inside it. The animation system records movement as part of the active shot's timeline. If you move an object before any shot exists, the move is recorded against the scene globally and the animation has nowhere to go.

## Details

| Action           | Where                                    |
| ---------------- | ---------------------------------------- |
| Add Shot         | Camera **+** icon below the viewport     |
| Duplicate        | Shot card ellipsis (⋯) → Duplicate       |
| Reorder          | Drag thumbnail in the storyboard         |
| Delete           | Shot card ellipsis (⋯) → Delete          |
| Rename           | Click the shot name in the details panel |
| Set lens         | Lens picker in the viewport              |
| Set aspect ratio | Aspect ratio picker in the viewport      |

## Limits and known issues

* **Shots are scene-bound.** A shot can't reference a camera in a different scene. Cross-scene edits live in the [Sequence Timeline](/compose/timeline.md).
* **Reordering doesn't update the auto-prompt history.** If you renumber shots after rendering, the rendered images keep their original shot numbers in metadata. Rename rather than reorder for this reason if you care about file naming.
* **Animation is per-shot, but Build-mode moves are global.** This trips up users coming from sequencer-style tools. See [Animation and shot time](/overview/concepts/animation-and-shot-time.md).

## Related

* [Camera controls](/compose/camera-controls.md)
* [Lenses](/compose/lenses.md)
* [Aspect ratios and film gates](/compose/aspect-ratios-and-film-gates.md)
* [Shot details](/compose/shot-details.md)
* [Animation](/compose/animation.md)
* [Animation and shot time](/overview/concepts/animation-and-shot-time.md)


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