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Plan Scene Coverage

Goal: Map out all the camera angles you need to cover a scene — wide, medium, close-up, reverses — so you generate a complete set of shots before rendering anything.

Coverage is the collection of angles a director shoots to fully capture what happens in a scene. A covered scene has at least an establishing wide shot, medium shots on each character, and close-ups for key emotional moments. Without coverage, you may finish rendering and discover you're missing an angle you needed in the edit. Planning coverage before rendering saves you from expensive re-generates later.

If you're new to filmmaking: coverage just means "enough angles to tell the story." ACT3 AI guides you through this so you don't have to know every convention from the start.

Steps​

  1. Open your scene. Click the scene in the project sidebar. The Scene panel opens.

  2. Open the Coverage Planner. In the Scene panel, click the Coverage tab. The Coverage Planner opens, showing a list of characters in this scene on the left and a list of story beats (the key moments of action or dialogue) on the right.

  3. Review the suggested coverage template. ACT3 AI automatically recommends a starting coverage plan based on the number of characters and beats. A typical recommendation for a two-character dialogue scene looks like:

    • 1 × Establishing Wide Shot
    • 1 × Two-Shot (both characters)
    • 1 × Medium on Character A
    • 1 × Medium on Character B
    • 1 × Close-Up on Character A
    • 1 × Close-Up on Character B

    This is the minimum coverage to cut a clean dialogue scene.

  4. Add shot types you need. If your scene has more action, more characters, or specific moments that need a particular angle, click Add Shot Type and select from the list: Establishing Wide, Two-Shot, Medium, Close-Up, Extreme Close-Up, Over-the-Shoulder, Reaction Shot, Insert Shot, POV Shot, Low Angle, High Angle, Tracking Shot. Add as many as the scene calls for.

  5. Remove shot types you don't need. If a recommended shot type isn't relevant to your scene — for example, a single-character monologue doesn't need a Two-Shot — click the trash icon next to that row to remove it.

  6. Assign each shot to a camera position in the Top-Down Editor. For each shot type in the list, click Assign Camera. The Top-Down Editor opens (or switches to focus). Place and aim a camera position for that shot, then click Use This Camera to link it. Return to the Coverage Planner and repeat for the next shot.

  7. Check that all dialogue has coverage. In the Coverage Planner, the Beats column highlights any beats that have no shot assigned to them yet. These are the gaps. Every line of dialogue and every significant action beat should have at least one shot covering it. Click an uncovered beat to jump to it and assign a shot.

  8. Mark coverage complete. When every shot type has a camera position and every beat is covered, click Mark Coverage Complete. This sets a green checkmark on the scene and lets the rest of the team (or you in a future session) know the scene is ready to configure.

  9. Review the populated shot list. After marking coverage complete, the Shot List tab for this scene will be fully populated with one shot entry per coverage angle. Each shot is ready to configure — set lens, lighting, character performance — before rendering.

Tips​

  • Over-shooting is fine — you can always leave shots on the cutting room floor in the timeline. Under-shooting means going back to re-render, which costs both time and credits. When in doubt, add the angle.
  • For action scenes or crowd scenes, add more wide shots than you think you need — the editor needs wide shots to establish spatial relationships before cutting to close-ups.
  • Once you've planned coverage for a few scenes, the ACT3 AI suggestions will start matching your style preferences more closely.

Next steps​