Elements live across scenes
A breakdown sheet shows the elements in one scene. An element can run through dozens of scenes. Take one prop from a thriller:
| Element | Category | Scenes | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jake's revolver | Props | 12, 14, 31, 58, 58A, 77 | hero and rubber versions; armorer required |
Six scenes, spread across a shoot that might put scene 77 in week one and scene 12 in week four. The prop master needs that full list to know how long the gun is on the rental, and the 2nd AD needs it to put an armorer on the right call sheets. Cast members work the same way. The day out of days is really a report on cast elements across shoot days.
How to tag an element
Tag it where it first matters, then in every scene it appears, whether or not the script mentions it again. A few conventions most ADs follow:
- Name it once and reuse the name exactly ("Maya's Volvo", never "the car" later).
- Split variants that need different items: "Maya's Volvo (clean)" and "Maya's Volvo (crashed)" are two elements if they're two cars.
- Put counts on background and multiples: "6 riot police", "wine glass x4 (breakaway)".
- Put implied items in: if a character "reads the text," the phone is an element even though the script never says phone.
On paper, you mark elements in the script with the breakdown color codes before copying them to the sheet. Red underline is cast, purple is props, a circle means wardrobe.
Mistakes that cost money
Duplicate elements are the classic one, because they double up rentals and purchase orders. The opposite happens too: two different items merged under a vague name. "Police car" across a script can mean a hero cruiser the lead drives and three dressing cars parked at a scene, and those are priced very differently as picture vehicles. Another is filing an item under the wrong department. A lamp an actor switches on is a prop; the lamp on a side table nobody touches is set dressing.
Where elements go
Elements feed department lists (the prop list, wardrobe breakdown, casting breakdown), the budget, and the daily call sheet. In Storiara, elements pulled from the script sit in modules by type (props and wardrobe under Assets, characters and extras under Cast & Crew) and get tagged to the scenes they appear in. See script analysis for how the tagging works.