Art Department
Props, dressing and reference in one place.
The art department works from a breakdown somebody else made, a mood board in a shared folder, and a props list in a spreadsheet. All three describe the same production and none of them talk to each other.
What is art department software?
Art department software organises the visual and physical preparation of a production — reference and mood boards, prop records and set dressing. It keeps that material in the same project as the script and the schedule, with each prop and board carrying the scenes it belongs to, so the reference is there on the day.
What you get
Mood boards per look
Reference images grouped by set, scene or look, each board on its own page with captions and an order you set. It lives in the project beside the script, not in a shared drive folder called final_FINAL_v2.
Boards you can keep in the department
A board is visible either to the whole production or to the art department alone. Early look development usually wants the second one, and nothing forces you to show a director thirty rejected chairs.
Props as records, with photographs
Each prop carries a name, a description, a photograph and free notes. The photograph matters more than it sounds: it is what settles whether the thing that arrived is the thing that was approved.
A status that only moves one way
Sourced, on set, returned or damaged — and the system refuses the jumps that make no sense. Every change takes a note, so 'who moved this to damaged, and why' has an answer.
Every prop knows its scenes
Props carry the scenes they appear in. When a scene moves in the schedule, the department can see what moves with it.
Filter by status, search by name
Find every prop still unsourced, or everything out on set, or just the one you half-remember the name of. On a list of four hundred dressing items this is the whole job.
The parallel-list problem
The 1st AD breaks down the script and tags props. The art department then reads the script again and builds its own props list, because the breakdown lives in a scheduling tool that art doesn't use.
Two lists, made from the same script, by different people, at different times. They diverge immediately — and the divergence is discovered on the day, when something needed isn't there.
Hero props are a different job
A hero prop — handled by a performer, on camera in close-up, appearing across multiple scenes — needs doubles, continuity tracking and often a repair plan. Background dressing needs none of that.
Treating them as one list means either over-preparing dressing or under-preparing hero items. The second is how a day stops.
Worth saying plainly: a prop record here carries a name, description, photograph and notes — there is no hero flag. The distinction is one you write down and search on, not one the system enforces.
Reference where the work is
Mood boards live in shared drives, Pinterest and phone camera rolls. That's fine during design and useless on the shoot day, when a set dresser needs to know what the reference actually was.
Keeping boards in the project means the reference for a set is one click from the scene being shot, on the day, on a phone.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
- What does the art department do?
- It creates the physical and visual world of the production — sets, set dressing, props and construction — under the production designer, working from the script breakdown and the director's vision.
- What is the difference between props and set dressing?
- Props are handled or used by performers. Set dressing furnishes the space but isn't touched. The distinction matters because props often need doubles and continuity tracking while dressing usually doesn't.
- What is a hero prop?
- A prop that appears prominently on camera, is handled by a performer, and usually recurs across scenes. Hero props typically need doubles, continuity tracking and a repair plan.
- Does the art department get its own breakdown?
- Not automatically. The props list here is built in the department's own view; it is not filtered out of the 1st AD's breakdown, because the two are not wired together yet. What you get instead is a props list that lives in the same project as the script, so at least both are in one place.
- Can I store mood boards here?
- Yes — reference images organised by set, scene or look, living in the same project as the script and schedule so they're available on the shoot day rather than in a shared drive.
- Is it free?
- Yes, on the free tier, alongside breakdown, scheduling and the other department hubs.
Terms explained
- Script breakdown
- A script breakdown is the process of reading a screenplay scene by scene and tagging every physical element a scene requires — cast, extras, props, wardrobe, vehicles, stunts, special effects, animals. The tagged result is what the schedule, the budget and every department's prep list are built from.
- Breakdown sheet
- A breakdown sheet is the one-page record of a single scene's requirements produced during a script breakdown. It carries the scene number, its length in eighths, the location, day or night, a one-line synopsis, and every tagged element grouped by department.
Get the templates and guides
Call sheets, breakdown sheets and DOOD grids as downloadable files, plus a note when we publish something new.
No spam, and unsubscribe from anything we send. See how we handle your address in the privacy policy.
Give the art department a real list.
Boards, props, and the scenes they belong to — in the same project as the script. Free to start.