what is a beat sheet?

Ahhh, the beatsheet. Sort of like… the pre-drinking stage to writing the script.

The beatsheet composes the order and content within each scene in your script. Often, writers set them out on a pin board, pinning pieces of card explaining the occurrences within individual scenes in the desired order. The beauty of this, is that if something seems in the wrong order It can be pinned somewhere else. Or if something appears to be missing in the story write the scene to make up the missing element on a new card and pin it on.

Same goes for if there appears to be too much in the story, cards (scenes) can be removed by being unpinned. But, what helps most is that you are able to see it for yourself and feel more organised. Also, you already know what to write! It’s just a matter of expanding the scenes through detail and dialogue.

planning your scenes

Now that the beatsheet itself has been cleared up… let’s discuss the beats within a beat sheet. So a basic scene could perhaps be…

BOY walks his dog, sees GIRL sat on bench and immediately falls in love.

Let’s add a beat to it-

BOY walks his dog, trips over the dog causing the dog to yelp, sees GIRL sat on bench and immediately falls in love.

Now this extra beat implies about BOY that he’s a bit clumsy. Let’s try another beat-

BOY walks his dog, trips over the dog causing the dog to yelp, BOY kneels down and calms the dog down, sees GIRL sat on bench and immediately falls in love.

Again another extra beat displays BOY as clumsy, but with a good heart. This ties in with the device mentioned in another article on the site- SAVE THE CAT- displaying a character in a discreetly positive, selfless way to immediately influence the audience’s opinion.

enhance your experience

To summarise the above tangent, beatsheets help to enhance the engagement in a script and encourage characterisation. This is why it’s best to have character development and world development under wraps before composing a beatsheet, if you have a strong idea of your characters then this will stand out in the beatsheet.

Now when it comes to close examination of your beatsheet, each scene needs to be looked at with the following in mind:

What’s the purpose of this scene- how is it’s existence significant to the plot portrayal?

Who’s scene is it- which character stands out the most and reveals more information about themselves through this scene?

What is their goal in the scene- what is this character trying to achieve from their behaviour in this scene?

What’s in their way- who/what is the obstacle preventing them from getting what they want?

What do they do to overcome this- to what extent does the character go to in order to reach their goal?

What is the final outcome of this scene- does the scene take a turn and the character gets their glory?

do your scenes meet the criteria?

If the individual scene cards on your beat sheet can’t answer all of the above questions, then it’s time to debate, is this scene vital enough to be in the script? Does it move the story on? Or is it time to cut…