How scenes are ordered in SceneMatch

Scene order in SceneMatch is mostly automatic and occasionally manual, and knowing which is which saves a lot of confusion.

The automatic part: a scene lands where its number says it should. The manual part: Move lets you override that for a scene whose place in the list is not the place its number implies.

The default: numbers decide

Whenever a scene is created, cloned or renumbered, SceneMatch works out where it belongs from its number and puts it there. You do not sort the list yourself.

Clone scene 105 and number the copy 107A, and it appears between 107 and 108 — not next to 105 where you made it. Renumber 107 to 102A and it moves to sit between 102 and 103. Renumber a scene to 109 and it goes to the end.

Numbers with letters sort the way a script does, not the way plain text does: 102A falls between 102 and 103, and 107A between 107 and 108. This is what makes revision inserts work — a scene numbered 102A lands between 102 and 103 without you doing anything.

Move: when the number is not the whole story

Open a scene card's action menu and there is a Move option. It offers up to two choices, named after the actual neighbours:

• Move before ⟨the scene above⟩
• Move after ⟨the scene below⟩

Move swaps the scene with that neighbour. It does not change either scene's number. Both keep the numbers they had; only their positions trade places.

Use it one step at a time — Move works against the immediate neighbour, so shifting a scene several places means repeating it.

You will only see Move when there is somewhere to move to: a single scene, or the top scene asked to move up, has no neighbour to swap with and the option is simply not offered. It also needs edit rights on the script — see roles and departments if it is missing for someone who expects it.

The rule that catches people out

Renumbering a scene you have moved puts it back where its number says.

Move sets a position directly. Renumbering re-derives that position from the number — so the manual placement is replaced. If you move a scene and later change its number, expect it to jump.

The reverse is reassuring: moving one scene does not disturb the others. When a scene is added, cloned or renumbered, SceneMatch keeps every other scene in the order it is currently in and only slots the changed scene into place. Manual moves you have made elsewhere in the list survive.

So the two mechanisms coexist as long as you remember which one you touched last for that particular scene.

Which one should you reach for?

• The scene is in the wrong place because its number is wrong → change the number. The position follows.
• The number is right but the order should not follow it → use Move. This is the case for a scene that plays out of numeric sequence, or a late insert you want read somewhere other than where its number puts it.

If you are unsure which situation you are in, look at the number: if it reads correctly in the script, you want Move.

What this does not control

Script order is not shooting order. This list reads in script order; the order you shoot in lives on your shooting days, where scenes are arranged per day and can be reordered freely there. Neither renumbering a scene nor moving it disturbs any shooting day it has been scheduled into.