Requires: Content Creator tier
Shot planning is a filming checklist attached to your trip. You list the shots you want to capture, say how each one should be framed and lit, which camera you will use and where on the route it happens, then tick them off as you film. The list travels with the trip and exports as a printable PDF. It needs Content Creator. Trips alone, on Thru Hiker, do not include it.
Where Shot Planning Lives
Shots sit on a Shots tab marked with a videocam icon. The trip and section tabs are icon-only, so there is no text label to look for.
On a Thru-hike
- Each Trip Section has its own Shots tab, and that is where you add and edit shots.
- The trip also has a Shots tab, which shows a read-only roll-up of every section's shots.
On a Shorter Trip
A shorter trip keeps a single shot list at trip level, the same way it keeps its weather there. The trip's Shots tab edits the first section's list directly, and no Shots tab appears on the section screen at all.
If a shorter trip somehow has more than one section, only the first section's shots can be reached. Nothing is deleted, but the rest are out of sight until you switch back.
The app warns you before that happens. Switching a thru-hike to a shorter trip in the trip editor shows Change trip type? with the message "Shorter trips keep one shot list at trip level, so n shots on later sections will no longer be reachable. Nothing is deleted, switch back to a thru-hike to see them again." You can Cancel or Continue.
The Shot List
The header above the list reads {filmed} of {total} filmed, for example "3 of 11 filmed". Two buttons sit beside it:
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
| Export as PDF | Builds a shot list PDF for this section and hands it to the share sheet |
| Reorder shots | Switches the list into drag-to-reorder mode. Disabled until you have at least two shots |
In reorder mode the header buttons change to a tick and a cross: the tick saves the new order, the cross discards it and restores the order you started with. If the save fails you get "Failed to save the new order".
Each row in the list shows:
- A tick circle on the left. Tap it to mark the shot filmed or unfilmed straight from the list.
- The shot title, struck through and greyed once the shot is filmed.
- Chips for framing, lighting, camera and location, each only shown if it is set.
- The estimated duration on the right, formatted as m:ss (so 90 seconds reads as 1:30). Shots with no estimate show nothing.
Tap a row to open the shot editor. Swipe a row left to delete it. Drag the handle in reorder mode to move a shot, and the + button adds a new one at the end of the list.
Before you have added anything, the tab shows "No shots yet." with "Plan what you want to film on this section." and a New shot button.
Fields on a Shot
Everything about a shot is on one screen. Save with the tick button at the bottom right.
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Title | Required. "Title is required" if you leave it blank |
| Description | Free text, two to four lines |
| Framing | Picked from your own Shot Framings list |
| Lighting | Picked from your own Shot Lighting list |
| Estimated duration | A plain number. Placeholder reads "Not set" |
| Unit | Seconds or Minutes. The unit is only how you typed the figure |
| Camera | An item from your Gear Locker. Shows "No camera" until you pick one |
| Location | An optional link to a waypoint on this section |
| Filmed | A switch reading Filmed or Not filmed |
Changing the unit keeps whatever number you have typed and reinterprets it. Typing 90 with Seconds selected and then switching to Minutes gives you 90 minutes, not 1.5.
Framing, lighting, camera and location are the only descriptors a shot carries. There is no shot type, lens, time of day, status or priority.
Framing and Lighting Lists
Framing and Lighting are your own pick lists, not fixed options. A new account starts with the defaults below, in English. Rename them to suit how you work.
Default Framings
| # | Framing |
|---|---|
| 1 | Establishing |
| 2 | Wide |
| 3 | Medium |
| 4 | Diary (interview talking head) |
| 5 | Closeup |
| 6 | POV |
| 7 | Tracking |
| 8 | Timelapse |
| 9 | Drone - tracking |
| 10 | Drone - wide |
Default Lightings
| # | Lighting |
|---|---|
| 1 | Any |
| 2 | Golden hour |
| 3 | Blue hour |
| 4 | Daylight |
| 5 | Overcast |
| 6 | Night |
Managing the Lists
Both lists live in Profile, under Shot Framings ("The framing options offered on a shot") and Shot Lighting ("The lighting options offered on a shot"). They only appear in Profile if you are on the Content Creator tier.
- Open Profile
- Tap Shot Framings or Shot Lighting
- Tap + to add an entry, or tap an existing one to rename it
- Enter a Name and save
- Use the reorder button in the toolbar to drag entries into the order you want, then confirm with the tick
Swipe an entry left to delete it. The first entry in each list (Establishing, and Any) is the fallback and cannot be swiped away. Empty a list and it stays empty; the defaults are not put back.
Renaming or deleting an entry does not disturb shots already using it. Each shot keeps the name it was given at the time, so an old shot still reads properly rather than going blank.
Choosing a Camera
Tapping the camera row opens Choose a camera, a bottom sheet over your Gear Locker.
The first time you use it, the sheet lists your whole locker with each item's category as a subtitle. When you pick something, the app adopts that item's gear category as your camera category and tells you "Cameras will now come from this gear category". From then on the sheet opens filtered to that category.
That choice is made once. Picking from another category later does not move it.
The sheet has three controls:
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Search gear | Filters the visible list by name |
| Show all gear | Drops the category filter for this visit and shows the whole locker. Only shown while the sheet is filtered |
| No camera | Clears the camera from the shot. Only shown when a camera is already set |
If nothing matches, the sheet reads "No gear found". You can also clear the camera from the editor itself using the close button on the camera row.
Waypoints and Shot Locations
A shot can be pinned to a place on the route. There are two ways to do it, offered side by side under Location.
Link a Waypoint
Link a waypoint opens a sheet listing the waypoints already on this section, with each one's icon, name and description, and a tick against the one currently linked. Tap a waypoint to link it.
If the section has no waypoints yet, nothing opens and you get the message "Not tied to a waypoint" instead.
Drop a New Waypoint
Drop a new waypoint opens a full-screen map. The map centres on the middle of the section's GPX route if one exists, otherwise on the section's location.
- In the shot editor, tap Drop a new waypoint
- The map opens with the banner "Tap the map to place this shot" and the section route drawn in blue
- Tap the map where the shot happens. A yellow pin appears
- Tap again elsewhere to move it
- Confirm with the tick button, which only appears once a pin is placed
- Back in the editor the location row shows the pin, ready to save
Placing the pin does not create the waypoint. That happens when you save the shot, so backing out of the editor leaves nothing behind. If the waypoint cannot be created, the shot still saves, just without a location.
The new waypoint takes the type shot (a videocam icon, brand yellow on the map) and the shot's title as its name.
When a Waypoint Is Deleted
A shot whose waypoint has gone shows Location removed, both as a chip in the list and as a row in the editor with a Link a waypoint button next to it. Link it to another waypoint, or just save the shot to clear it.
How Waypoints Work Alongside Shots
Shot locations are ordinary waypoints, so they behave like every other waypoint on the trip. Most waypoints have nothing to do with shot planning.
Adding Waypoints Independently
- On a section's Route tab, long-press the map where you want a waypoint. Long-pressing an existing waypoint offers to delete it instead. On the web app, where long-press is unreliable, use the add-location and remove-location toggle buttons on the right of the map, then tap the map.
- On a section's Waypoints tab, use Import from GPX. This is offered on the empty state, so import your waypoints before you start adding them by hand. Waypoints in the file are typed from their
symvalue, andshotorvideocamboth come in as shot waypoints.
Each waypoint has a name, a description and a type. The type is chosen from a row of quick icons (resupply, camp, water, turn, shot, location) or from the full icon picker.
How Waypoint Order Is Worked Out
You do not order waypoints yourself. The app works out how far along the section's GPX route each one sits, measuring to the nearest point on the route, and sorts them by that distance.
Two things follow from that:
- A waypoint more than 1.0 km from the nearest route point is badged Off trail instead of On trail.
- Without a GPX route on the section there is nothing to measure against, so no distance and no on-trail badge appear.
At trip level the distances carry on accumulating across sections, so each waypoint also has a distance from the start of the trip. By default the list is still grouped under section headings in section order. Only when Contiguous route is switched on ("Waypoints are ordered by position along the full route, not by section") are they re-sorted into one continuous route order with the section headings dropped.
Leg Estimates and the Type Filter
The Waypoints tab has a filter with five segments: All, resupply, camp, water and turn.
In the All view distances and leg times are hidden. Pick one of the other four and each row shows the distance from the previous waypoint of that same type plus an estimated leg time, calculated with Naismith's Rule: 4 km/h on the flat, plus an hour for every 600 m of ascent. Ascent comes from the route elevation at each snapped point, and descent is ignored.
There is no segment for shot waypoints, so look for shot locations in the All view along with everything else.
The Trip-level Roll-up
On a thru-hike, the trip's Shots tab is a read-only overview of the whole trip.
At the top is a stat bar of three figures:
| Stat | Meaning |
|---|---|
| SHOTS | Total number of shots across every section |
| MINUTES | Total estimated duration, rounded to whole minutes. Shots with no estimate contribute nothing |
| FILMED | How many of those shots are ticked off |
Below that, shots are grouped by section in trip order. Each section heading carries its own {filmed} of {total} filmed count, and each row shows the tick state, the title (struck through when filmed) and a subtitle of framing and lighting joined with a dot.
The roll-up does not update live. Pull down to refresh it after editing shots elsewhere, and tap any row to jump to that section's Shots tab, which is where the editing happens.
Exporting a Shot List as PDF
The PDF is a field checklist. Both the section shot list and the trip roll-up have an Export as PDF button, but they cover different ground:
- From a section's Shots tab, the PDF covers that section only.
- From the trip roll-up, it covers every section of the trip.
The page size follows your units setting: A4 portrait for metric, US Letter portrait for imperial.
What the document contains:
- A header with the trip name and the words SHOT LIST.
- A heading per section with the section name in capitals and a filmed count, shown as "3 / 11". Sections with no shots are skipped entirely.
- One row per shot: a checkbox (filled if already filmed), the shot number within the section, the title, the description, then a meta line joining framing, lighting, camera and waypoint name with dots, and the duration as m:ss right-aligned.
- A footer with the app name, the export date, and the page number.
The file is named with the prefix BiP-ShotList followed by a timestamp, and arrives in your device's share sheet, so you can save it, print it or send it on.
Tip: Give each shot a title you would be happy to see as a waypoint name, because Drop a new waypoint copies the title straight onto the waypoint. "Sunrise over the col" reads far better on the map than "Shot 4".
Related: Trips · Trip Sections · Waypoints & Weather · Profile & Account