Fix the framing during the take, not after the fourth one.
You set up the phone, hit record, do the scene, watch it back — and you were six inches too low with your eyeline drifting off lens. Take five. Again.
This is an app that watches the frame while you're in it and tells you, on screen, the three things you can actually fix mid-take: framing, eyeline, pace.
Pre-order — $9 once
Read this before you pay
This app does not exist yet. You are pre-ordering it.
- The camera tracking this depends on is not proven yet. We are testing whether it holds up against a real person in a real room. It might not.
- It ships only if that tracking question resolves. If it doesn't resolve, or the answer is no, it does not ship.
- Ship-by date: 15 October 2026. Not shipped by then? You are refunded in full, automatically, without asking.
- Changed your mind for any reason at all? Email refunds@shovelware.ai and you get your $9 back. No questions, no time limit, no form.
What $9 buys: the app at launch, and the launch price locked for you. That's it — it's a deposit on a thing being made, priced so that being wrong costs you a coffee.
Card handled by Stripe. We never see your card number.
Why during the take is the whole point
Every tool that reviews your self-tape does it afterwards. That's a note you apply on the next take, which means another take. A cue you can see while you're still in the scene is a correction, not a note.
There are three things that are worth interrupting you for, because they are mechanical and you can fix them without breaking the scene:
Framing
Waist-up or chest-up, centred, with the right headroom. Drift out of it and you get a nudge, not a lecture.
Eyeline
Where you're actually looking versus where the reader is supposed to be. The single most common self-tape note there is.
Pace
Words per minute against the range you set for the scene, so nerves-rushing shows up while you can still slow down.
What already exists, honestly
We are not going to tell you nobody does this. Here's the actual landscape, and the actual gap we think is open:
| What | Costs | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Human self-tape coaches (Put Me On Self-Tape, The Self Tape Space) | $45–190 a session | Live, real-time, and better than any app at craft judgement. Also a booking, a schedule and a bill. |
| ActOnCue, Acting Pal | Free–$9.99/mo | Live AI cues during the take — for line reading. An AI reader that hits cues on time. Not camera craft. |
| RoleLab.ai, Sides | $2.99–14.99 per analysis, or ~$19–39/mo | AI feedback on a tape you already recorded. Fast, but after the fact. |
| This | $9 pre-order | Live, in-take cues on framing, eyeline and pace. That specific gap is what's unoccupied. |
Prices checked August 2026. If one of these already solves your problem, use it — genuinely.
Who's asking
Shovelware builds small tools and tests whether anyone wants them before building them properly. This page is that test. If fewer than three people pre-order, the app doesn't get built and everyone gets refunded — which is the honest version of what most "coming soon" pages are quietly doing anyway.