FramePath 1.1 — Your lenses, your location, your loop

I've found that there's a particular kind of gap in solo filmmaking that no tool ever quite fixes, at least not for me. You're at a location, the light is doing something right, and you've found the perfect angle for a scene. You take a phone photo. Days later, when you're back at your desk building the shot list, the image may be in your photo library but the feeling is mostly gone. Worse, you don't even remember why you took that particular photo.

I built FramePath to close gaps like that — not in an abstract "AI will solve everything" way, but practically: pre-production should feel like executing a plan you actually made, not reconstructing your own memory. FramePath 1.1 is the release where that gap genuinely gets smaller, and it's also the release where FramePath becomes free to download, so more of you can see what I mean.

Lenses are part of the plan now

The most substantial addition in 1.1 is Lens Kits. Every project can now have its own lens collection — the specific focal lengths you're actually planning to use. Three preset kits ship with the app — Cine Primes, Documentary Zooms, and an Anamorphic Set — and on Pro you can build a custom package from whatever's actually in your case.

Once a kit is active, it shows up everywhere: the per-shot lens field, a compact token on the shot card alongside shot size and angle, and — the part I'm most pleased with — the AI now knows your glass and uses what you actually have.

A more useful AI conversation

AI shot generation in 1.0.2 was a one-shot interaction: you got a basic shot list, and editing meant accepting it or starting over. In 1.1 it's a loop. Before generating, pick a coverage density — Minimal (3–4 shots), Standard (6–8), or Full (10–12) — and a setup budget telling the AI how many camera positions to plan for. It now scales properly across the whole scene instead of trailing off on the later beats, so you shoot a tight two-hander differently from a twelve-setup chase without any extra work.

After generation, a second mode unlocks: Refine, with three options — re-run the whole thing, add coverage on top of what's there, or refine the existing shots without losing your manual edits. That last one is the one I use most: the AI updates its own suggestions, my overrides stay intact. It's made working with the AI feel like a collaboration, not a batch job with little control over the result.

When a lens kit is active, the AI assigns focal lengths from it directly onto the shots it returns — with a toggle in Refine mode to re-suggest them, useful after you've swapped kits partway through planning.

A faster way to write

The Story Editor got the rebuild I'd wanted to give it since 1.0. A contextual insertion strip between every pair of elements means adding a slugline or an action line is one tap at the spot you want it, not a mode switch. A selection mode lets you grab several elements at once — drag the whole group, or batch delete, move-to-scene, duplicate, or change-type in one action instead of five — with keyboard shortcuts on Mac. None of this is flashy, but it's the part of the app I live in most while breaking down a script, so I wanted it to finally feel fast.

The photo you took at the location

The other big change is the scouting pipeline. That phone photo you took at the location — take it directly inside the app, or pull one from your library, set it as a storyboard frame's reference backdrop, and sketch over it (best on iPad with the Apple Pencil). It persists and syncs via iCloud, so the angle, and the drawing, are still there at your desk. On iPhone, a dedicated portrait storyboard sheet means the whole scouting-to-sketch workflow fits in your pocket at the location itself. The renderer underneath it was also rebuilt from the ground up this release, fixing ink strokes that looked wrong in dark mode and thumbnails that landed at the wrong coordinates after a cross-device sync.

Everything else in 1.1

FramePath is free to download: three projects, the full script, shot list, character and Shoot Mode workflow, and a one-time batch of AI tokens to try shot generation yourself, no purchase required. Pro stays a 7-day free trial away for unlimited projects, the Lens Kit Manager, storyboard drawing and reference photos, and PDF export.

Shot Size and Camera Angle menus now show full names (CU — Close-Up, HS — High Shot), readable without a reference sheet even for someone — like me — who doesn't reliably remember the abbreviations. Tapping the Shoot stage now takes you straight into the clapperboard for your next shot. Adding a storyboard frame asks up front whether you want to draw or use a photo, you can drag an image straight onto a shot card on iPad or Mac, and the shot list's PDF, CSV, and text exports now carry the lens field. And the app ships a full offline user guide and a feedback form built right in — Help & Info on iPhone and iPad, the Help menu on Mac — so if something's wrong, or missing, you can tell me without leaving the app.

What's next

The 1.2 roadmap is already taking shape: renaming scenes from the detail editor, real sorting and filtering for the project list, and a proper review pass of the new Story Editor selection workflow now that it's had some real use. I'm also thinking about building on the lens kits foundation to track other gear you need on set.

If any of those matter to you, or if you find that something in 1.1 is broken or missing, I'd genuinely like to hear from you. The feedback form is in the Help & Info sheet. Help me make the app work for you, not just for me!

— Miikka