WTF is a beat sheet?
First, thanks for telling me to buy a new car. (I did.) Second, what the frak is a beat sheet?
I’ve taken screenwriting, short-story writing, and novel writing classes. I’ve taken filmmaking classes. I’ve read several writing manuals. Writers and professors all love to talk about the importance of beat sheets. While they are apparently the single most important thing a writer can ever do, they never show examples. And I’ve heard multiple definitions, from a one-sentence description of each scene to a detailed breakdown of every action in the script.
I’m beginning to suspect conspiracy. I don’t think anybody really uses beat sheets. They claim to in order to sound responsible, much like the myth of flossing. Can you post an example of a beat sheet and blow this mystery out of the water?
– Nick T.
Beat sheets are a form of outline. Each major plot point gets its own bullet point (or occasionally, a number). That’s it.
They can be a helpful way of discussing the storyline of a movie.
PRODUCER
What if Shoe and Dog’s dance number at Marvin Gardens came before Race Car discovered the Community Chest? We could get rid of these three beats, including Top Hat and Thimble’s knife fight.
SCREENWRITER
Did you know Inception wasn’t based on anything?
In the Library, you can see a minimal beat sheet that Jordan Mechner and I did for our never-shot pilot Ops. It includes a column showing which characters are in any given scene, and which one of us was going to write it.
For the first Charlie’s Angels, I did a series of beat sheets as we debated and formulated. This one shows a pretty close approximation of what I ended up writing for the first draft. Numbering the beats ended up being a huge help for conference calls.
(Trivia: You’ll notice there’s a villain character named “Lucy Liu,” which far predates the actual Lucy Liu being involved with the movie. That villain character was ultimately played by Kelly Lynch, while Lucy was later cast as the third angel.)
Note that beat sheets are also commonly written after there is a draft of a screenplay. I’ve asked my assistants to do a beat sheet of a script I’m about to begin rewriting so that I’ll have a roadmap of how things are arranged.
Filed under: Charlie's Angels, Ops, Projects, QandA, Treatments
23 Responses to “WTF is a beat sheet?”
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July 19th, 2010 at 9:12 am
Now I want to watch the Top Hat and Thimble knife fight. I heard it’s in the underground lair beneath Baltic Ave. :)
July 19th, 2010 at 9:20 am
Nick, if you’re interested in the beat sheet method, try Blake Snyder’s Save The Cat! ; )
July 19th, 2010 at 9:35 am
BREAKING: Jessica Simpson ankles Thimble role when producers refuse to cut “Win Second Prize in a Beauty Contest” scene
July 19th, 2010 at 9:45 am
I agree with Sarah. Blake Snyder’s Beat Sheet is a huge help, as well as the rest of the information in his books.
July 19th, 2010 at 9:51 am
My warning for those not sure the difference between a beat sheet and an outline — you never want to show your beat sheet to anyone unless they’ve already read your script. A good outline, on the other hand, can be shown to others even before you’ve started writing. (note the word “good”)
Beat sheets are great for helping the writer wrap their head around a draft, but to someone not familiar with the material, their brevity can make your story (and characters) seem very one dimensional.
Beat sheets also have one other use: you can make them for your favorite already-produced films, so you can easily dissect their structure and learn from them.
July 19th, 2010 at 9:58 am
LOL to Devanshu! And the SCREENWRITER’s non sequitur above. :P
Actually in my screenwriting course at Carnegie Mellon (with Jane Bernstein), we were required to do a beat sheet for our scripts but I wasn’t too good at it. (I rebelled against planning for a long time. Silly, silly me.) Thanks for these sample beat sheets! Now that I am a semi-planner, it’s really helpful to see a professional example. (Especially since the style resembles how I outline my books. Reassuring!)
LOL also to “Don’t think of them as “To Be Determined,” think “To Be Delightful” once written.” (!!!)
I don’t know if beat sheets work out this nicely, but I found that with my outlines, the number of bullet points I had usually worked out in a 1:1000 ratio to word count. In other words, 80 bullet points meant 80,000 words, which is a good length for a novel. I found that really helpful to know my pacing was on track; dunno if there’s some ratio like that for beat sheets to screenplay length.
July 19th, 2010 at 10:25 am
The Ops overview reads like a spoiler-tastic DVD Chapter list!
July 19th, 2010 at 11:16 am
Thanks for posting, John. Definitely helps.
July 19th, 2010 at 11:38 am
Hi John! A well timed article as my writing partner and I are about to dive headlong into penning our first feature. We’ve talked about a beat sheet and your Ops example is perfect!
July 19th, 2010 at 1:52 pm
I think in recent years the “beat sheet” has started to become synonymous with Blake Snyder’s definition of a beat sheet. I’ve recently had producers request and I’ve known several friends who have also had requests specifically for the “Blake Snyder Beat Sheet.” Certainly if someone requests a “beat sheet” and that’s what you give them they’ll probably be happy with it.
July 19th, 2010 at 5:27 pm
certainly the term ‘beat sheet’ has become synonymous with outline in the feature world. in television, a beat sheet is the first step in the writing process. its the bare-bones bullet-point form of the outline. in many cases, it’s taking the beats from the board in the room and putting it on paper. each beat of a beat sheet represents the simple action. in outline form, that beat is specified and expanded upon in terms of the story. for example, “John evades captors” becomes “John races across rooftops, makes a spectacular jump, lands on a balcony…etc.”
again, in television, the beat sheet is the first, and usually only internal, form of outline. once approved by the show runner, the writers then go off to Outline — the first paid step in a TV writing contract (story by credit if the writer’s contract is tiered). once the outline is finished, approved by the show runner and then the studio/network, the writer can then go off to script — the second step (teleplay by). The third and final step of the process is for the final draft, or seeing the script through each revision until shooting is completed (written by).
“Elephant Bucks” by Sheldon Bull is a good resource when it comes to TV writing (sitcoms in particular) and the evolution from Beat Sheets to Outlines to Script. Try “Writing the One-Hour Drama” by Pamela Douglas for dramas, if that’s your focus.
July 19th, 2010 at 11:26 pm
I love this note from the Charlie’s Angels Beat Sheet: “Don’t think of them as “To Be Determined,” think “To Be Delightful” once written.”
Well done, John, well done.
July 20th, 2010 at 12:24 am
Talking about the library, have you stopped updating the thing or are you just not allowed to show us anything that you’ve done since The Nines (and Remnants)? Always liked that part of your website. :)
July 20th, 2010 at 7:16 am
To answer the title question of this entry at johnaugust.com, WTF is not a beat sheet. WTF is an acronym.
BTW, John, when your name was called on the roll in school, “August, John”, musta been nice. Like Big Bad John’s brother, just without Jimmy Dean to sing it. (And certainly a lot better than the guy who was president of my college dorm one year, “Darling, Hyman”.)
July 20th, 2010 at 8:03 am
A “spoiler-tastic DVD chapter list” is probably the best, most concise definition of a beat sheet I’ve ever heard.
Kudos, Adam Ice Rink.
July 20th, 2010 at 10:50 am
@Sarah:
I can only put stuff in the Library that’s already shot. More recent work is under lockdown.
July 20th, 2010 at 10:52 am
Igor you do realize he changed his last name for film…
July 20th, 2010 at 12:31 pm
@Andrew. Damn! Normally my quips at least have a chance to be funny. Now I discover that the predicate was flawed. It was a suicide mission (without even a chance for pathos). Damn!
July 21st, 2010 at 4:42 am
John: I guess the same rule applies for “failed” projects?
Also, a bit off-topic, but there’s a new Alice game by American McGee being developed and it looks amazing. Too bad that movie never got made.
http://www.ea.com/alice
July 22nd, 2010 at 5:15 pm
Judith Weston covers the origin of bit by bit in her book “Directing Actors”. The russian acting guru was describing bit by bit but people interpreted him saying it beat by beat.
August 2nd, 2010 at 12:44 pm
Very useful advice, not only in the article but the comments as well. Thank you, John & co.!
August 5th, 2010 at 12:27 pm
@Igor. Actualy, if we are spliting hairs, WTF is an initializm :-)
Great article John, as awlays very usefull. Of course, when I create a Beat Sheet for the screenplay I am working on, it will be so Spoilertastic, it would end up reading like the Cue list on the Soundtrack for Phantom Menace…
August 25th, 2010 at 5:13 pm
Hey guys, check out my site http://www.beatsheetcentral.com for more on beat sheets. We’ve got about 50 films up there, always looking for more from the community. Great resource to see how plots work. Thanks to everyone who’s written in– please keep ‘em comin! best, nick