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 builds the props list from the elements tagged during script breakdown, separates hero props from background dressing, and tracks what the department has committed against its budget allocation.
What you get
Filtered from the breakdown
Props, vehicles and greenery tagged during [script breakdown](/script-breakdown-software) are offered as an import, grouped by scene. Accept the ones that are real and they become prop records carrying the scene they came from. No re-reading the script.
Safe to run again
A breakdown gets re-run on every script revision. Re-importing offers only what is new — anything already imported stays on the list, greyed out, so a second run never duplicates and never looks like the breakdown lost something.
Hero vs background
A prop is hero or it is dressing, and carries the number of doubles it needs. Hero props are handled on camera and need continuity tracking; dressing does not. Hero props are badged on the list so they stand out from the dressing.
Mood boards per look
Upload references to boards for a scene, a sequence or the whole production — choose, drop or paste images, each captioned. Uploads stay private to the production, and a board is visible to the whole production or to the art department alone, so early look development stays in the room.
Sketch the look
Draw straight onto a board with a mouse, a pen tablet or an Apple Pencil — pen, pencil, marker and eraser, frames from scope to 9:16 vertical, and a palette the whole team shares. Sketch over an uploaded location photo to mark changes, and reopen any sketch to keep working on it.
Everything knows its scenes
Props imported from the breakdown carry the scenes they came from, and every status change is kept as history. Filter the list by status — sourced through to returned.
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.
A prop is marked hero or not, carries the number of doubles it needs, and can be filtered either way — so the list the department preps from is the short one, not all four hundred items.
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?
- Yes. Props, vehicles and greenery tagged during script breakdown are offered as an import, grouped by scene, and each one you accept becomes a prop record carrying the scene it came from. Re-run it after a script revision and it offers only what is new — anything already imported stays listed but greyed out.
- Can I store mood boards here?
- Yes — upload reference images or sketch directly onto boards for a scene, a sequence or the whole production, with captions, 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.
- Mood board
- A mood board is a collection of reference images, colours and sketches that sets the visual direction for a scene, a sequence or a whole production. The art department, director and director of photography use it to agree on a look before anything is designed, built, dressed or lit.
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Give the art department a real list.
Straight from the breakdown, with reference attached. Free to start.