WATT-IF turns your location scout into a lighting flight simulator. Build the plan, get director buy-in, and hand the gaffer a printable blueprint before the trucks even arrive.
Beta. Processing time and output quality vary. Verify exposure and electrical decisions with professional tools and qualified crew.
A mood board is a suggestion. A WATT-IF Set Plan is a directive. Hand your electric department a mathematically sound rigging plan based on the actual physics of the location. The crew rigs faster, the director sees the vision immediately, and you spend your time tweaking the performance, not waiting on a C-stand.
Every hour your crew spends experimenting with lights on set costs you money. WATT-IF moves the experimentation to pre-production. Scan the location, drop in the fixtures, and walk on set with a plan you already trust.
The Stage lets you place virtual cinema fixtures on your reconstruction and review estimated illuminance values.
Build a virtual lighting setup with supported fixture types, modifiers, placement, and color controls. Treat manufacturer references as planning inputs, then verify the final plan on set.
Review subject illuminance, key/fill relationship, exposure guidance, and power planning values as physics-informed estimates.
Start with classic portrait patterns such as Rembrandt, Butterfly, Split, Loop, or High Key, then revise the supported fixture setup for the room in front of you.
Save a lighting setup with its fixtures, camera, and subject context, then revisit the plan when you need to explore a related setup.
A 90-minute lighting overrun on a 12-person day costs roughly $750 in burned crew time. WATT-IF costs $19/month. Prevent one overrun a year and it paid for itself three times over.
Explore body, lens, aperture, shutter, ISO, and focus-distance settings. Then check the estimated lux and contrast ratios using the built-in light meter.
M/mk reviews the current Stage, explains lighting choices, and can assist with supported recipe and setup actions through typed requests and tap-based actions.
Type a question or tap a supported action to work with the current Stage or save a recipe.
The current shell's still-image critique is local and deterministic. Your taste/style state is also local.
Text requests can use cloud reasoning for supported analysis and setup assistance. Treat outputs as creative guidance, not production approval.
Use supported actions to capture a recipe or explore a lighting plan, then confirm the final setup with crew and physical tools.
M/mk can discuss visual references and lighting vocabulary in text. These are interpretive learning cues, not affiliations, endorsements, or exact reproduction instructions.
WATT-IF is designed to support the handoff between an early lighting idea and an on-set plan. The final decisions still belong to the DP, gaffer, electrician, and the physical location.
Choose the plan that fits your production volume. Beta access begins immediately upon purchase.
| Features | Creator | Pro | Founding |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloud Processing | Fair use during beta | Fair use during beta | Fair use during beta |
| Set Plan PDF Export | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Gear CSV Export | - | Yes | Yes |
| Digital Twin JSON | - | Yes | Yes |
| Rate Lock | - | - | Locked for life |
WATT-IF was built by a Creative Director and filmmaker who got tired of watching talented people waste hours on lighting problems that could be solved in minutes — if the right tool existed. The gap between knowing what a lighting setup should look like and executing it on set was the problem WATT-IF was designed to close.
With a background spanning high-volume content pipelines, broadcast production systems, and cinematic pre-production, WATT-IF is a pre-lighting workflow that speaks the language of light in estimated units, reasons about fixtures from real manufacturers (Aputure, ARRI, ETC Source Four), and lets you scan your actual location and plan the light before you load a single case.
We are building a professional tool, which means being honest about its current limits. Read this before you buy.
Captured lighting is currently baked into the surface color. You are adding virtual fixtures to the room as it was lit during the scan, not starting from a blank slate. Scan in the flattest, most even light possible.
The lux, exposure, and power budget values are calculated estimates. They are not a replacement for a light meter or a qualified gaffer on the day.
Android users can build, edit, and render Stages, and generate Set Plan PDFs. However, capturing a new location requires an iPhone 12 Pro or later with LiDAR.
TestFlight beta is free during beta. Capture a compatible location, build a photo-textured spatial reconstruction, explore virtual fixtures, and prepare a crew-facing planning export.
iPhone 12 Pro or later (LiDAR required for capture) · iOS 16+ · Android reconstruction capture is planned.
