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Breakdown

Split a scene

Sometimes one script scene needs to be treated as several production scenes — for example when it spans different times of day or needs very different setups. You can split a scene manually at a chosen line. This article covers how.

Before you start

  • You have a script with parsed scenes.
  • You are a project Owner or Admin. Splitting is Owner- and Admin-only.

Split a scene manually

  1. Open the scene’s Scene actions menu in the scene detail header and choose Split Scene (the scene must be active).
  2. The Split Scene dialog opens, showing the scene’s text with line numbers and the prompt Click a line to set the split point.
  3. Select the line where the new scene should begin. (You cannot pick the first line.) The boundary above that line is highlighted.
  4. Under New scene suffix, choose how the new part is numbered (see Suffix notations). The dialog defaults to your project’s notation setting and shows a Preview of the resulting numbers.
  5. Optionally, under Tag (Reason to split), attach a reason (see Split tags).
  6. Select Split.

The scene is divided at the chosen line into linked production parts. Each part becomes its own scene to break down, schedule, and edit. The original parent is hidden automatically from breakdown scene lists, but remains intact and visible in Script Management. You land on the first resulting part.

Suffix notations

The New scene suffix dropdown sets how the new part is numbered:

Option Example
Letter (A, B) 5A
Part number (pt1, pt2) 5pt1
Fraction ((1/2)) 5(1/2)
Part fraction (pt.1/2) 5pt.1/2
Dash number (-1, -2) 5-1
Roman (I, II) 5I
Custom… Your own suffix (reveals a text field)

Split tags

Use Tag (Reason to split) to record why you split the scene. The reason appears before the synopsis, for example Phone Conversation:. It stays visible while you edit the synopsis without becoming part of the synopsis text.

Choose None, 2nd Unit, Pickup, Phone Conversation, VFX, Cross Cut, or Custom…. Custom… opens a field for your own reason.

After splitting

The original parent remains intact in the script viewer and Script Management, while the split parts become the operational scenes used in Breakdown. SceneItAll does not currently expose a user-facing Revert Split flow, so review the split point, suffix, and tag carefully before confirming.

Merging is a separate forward action. Merge scenes… creates one new combined scene and can hide its source scenes from Breakdown. See Merge scenes.