Not ready for pros, but theres potential.

This app seems pretty cool, and I could see it being turned into something very useful for a professional filmmaker. But to be honest, this app seems like its split between trying to be a stripboard app and a storyboard app. It doesnt do either particularly well, because its trying to do both. It either needs to focus on one, or add a ton of functionality into both sections to make it useable. Right now, its kind of neither/nor. Heres a short list of my gripes:

Theres surprisingly little edibility when it comes to the storyboards. Why not have the same amount of editable details one has for the stripboard for the storyboards. Similar to a camera log. Let me note things like shot name (5A), type (CU, MS, WS, etc), description (MCU on bad guy), intended lens maybe, intended filters maybe, a note section (shoot this after shot X because of….), etc. Also let me reorder them.Marking-wise, theres a big red x option. A green check mark would be a good addition, so that there would be a difference between "Done" and "Cut". Maybe some sort of "shoot later" option as well. If there was a "shoot later" functionality, it would need to be made clear higher-up in the chain (stripboard mode, for instance), since it would be easy to forget about that one shot that you missed if its buried all the way in Storyboard mode.

The Take picture option for the storyboard doesnt seem to work for me….

Can you only have 6 panes per scene in storyboard mode? Thats absurd. I couldnt figure out how to add more.

The underlying principal of diving up a shotlist via a strip board is a little iffy to me. So often we shoot a single scene across multiple days. Or a single shot from one scene (an insert, for example), is pushed to another day. Or sometimes youll have a montage where you steal various shots over various days. There is no functionality for any of this anywhere. The app assumes a single scene will be shot in a single day, and that things will stay nice and tidy at all times. This is rarely the case. Some flexibility needs to be added without expecting the user to jump through hoops.

Having to do math in 8ths is confusing. 3 3/8 pages should be 3 3/8, not 27/8.

When you tap Scene, Page, 8ths, Location, Description, and Cast, it becomes editable. But you have to hit the I button thing to edit notes. Not consistent.

Cast numbers dont seem to be editable. Nor is there anyway to assign a particular number to a particular character, aside from adding them in order the first time. Nor is it possible to view the stripboard with character number rather then character name. For some productions this number doesnt matter. But for larger-scale productions, its incredibly important for many departments.

In stripboard mode, there is no way to add extra strips for things like the beginning of the day, company moves, lunch/breaks, etc.

I havent tried planning out an entire shoot using the app yet, but I can only imagine how much of a nightmare it would be doing so on an iphone. Its great that its an iPhone/iPad app (and Im sure it would be a little less painstaking to do in on an iPad), but there really needs to be a companion desktop app to facilitate content creation.

There also badly needs to be some sort of cross functionality between EP scheduling and Final Draft. Having to type all that stuff in by hand is a mess. It pay a little extra for that type of cross-platform functionality.

I liked this app alot, and hope to see it evolve and improve. The recent drop in price is also a smart move. At the moment its just not ready to be used in a professional environment, but I can see alot of potential in it, and hope to add it to my filmmaking arsenal sometime soon.

Drewcifer3000 about ShotList- Movie Shoot Planning