This disclosure provides an approach for aggregating elements that are common across shots in the rendering of image frames. In one embodiment, common elements are aggregated via a scene editor which stores the common elements in a scene layer, which is an asset that is a container for elements such as characters, locations, and the like that are common across shots. The scene layer permits new shots to be created that inherit the common elements, rather than from scratch or by manually copying elements from other shots. The scene editor may further receive elements specific to particular shots and store such elements in shot layers that are created on top of the scene layer and store differences from the scene layer. A rendering application then renders image frames on a shot-by-shot basis using the common elements stored in the scene layer and the shot-specific elements stored in the shot layers.