Manage sets and their dressing

A set is a place the production shoots: the kitchen, the precinct, the car interior. It is not the same thing as a location — the set is what the script calls it, the location is the address you drive to. One location often holds several sets.

What a set holds

• A name, which must be unique. A second set with the same name is rejected, on creation and on rename.
• A number and description, for the productions that number their sets.
• A location — where this set physically is.
• Photos — the recce shots, the reference for how it should look.
• Continuity scenes — which scenes are shot here.
• Set dress — the items that fill it.

Attaching scenes

Open the continuity manager on a set and attach the scenes shot there. You can pick from the list or type a scene number to find one directly, and remove scenes the same way.

A scene has one set. Attach a set to a scene and the scene shows it, with the set's photo, so anyone opening that scene sees where it happens. Detaching leaves both intact.

You can also attach scenes while creating the set, which saves a pass when you already know the coverage.

Set dress

Set dress items — the lamp, the sofa — live in the production's warehouse, and are attached to the sets they belong on. You can create an item and attach it in one step, or attach one that already exists.

Removing an item from a set leaves the item in the warehouse for another set to use. It is the association you are removing, not the thing.

One nicety: opening a set dress item from a set scopes the previous/next navigation to that set's items, so you can page through what dresses this room without wandering into the rest of the production's inventory. Opening the same item from the warehouse pages through everything.

Merging two sets

The same place ends up in the list twice more often than you would think — a script that calls it INT. KITCHEN in one draft and INT. HOLLIS KITCHEN in the next, or two people adding it during prep.

Merge one set into the other and everything combines:

• Photos are pooled — two plus one gives three.
• Continuity scenes are combined, so the survivor covers every scene either set did.
• Set dress from both is attached to the survivor.

The target keeps its name, but it adopts the source's location and number. That is worth knowing before you choose a direction: if the entry you are keeping already has the right address, and the one you are merging in has a wrong one, check the result rather than assuming the target's won.

Finding a set

Sets are indexed by the production's search, so a set can be found by name from anywhere without navigating to the sets list. Sets also page previous/next through the list, in name order.

Exporting

A set exports to PDF with its photos and details — the sheet you hand to art department or take on a recce.

The thing that is not obvious

Deleting a set does not delete its set dress. The items go back to being unattached inventory in the warehouse, available for another set. What you lose is which scenes were shot there and the photos of the set itself.

If two sets have turned out to be one place, merge rather than delete — the continuity scenes are the part that is tedious to reconstruct, and merging keeps both sides' coverage.