Working in retrospective : beats

 In the coming weeks that I have been working, concisely and diligently, into my project, I have become very involved into my characters and the story itself. I have always been very passionate about putting issues that are seen to be "shunned" or minimized by the western culture, typically mental illness and eating disorders fall in this category. For those reasons, my raw draft for my script has come out to be 9 pages, with many details and things that I wanted to be able to happen not included. Similarly with how i been working with my own tiredness and writer's block, i wanted to know what i could do to make the editing process less "daunting" and not get frustrated with myself and the work that i am doing- and not doing- these days. In that way, a more organized type of informing my mind and letting me not feel like having multiple ideas inside my head with no coherent reason, i will expand from my story synopsis, working backwards in a way, reading my script and listing the events and actions that happen at each stage. 

Beat sheets are simple to do: a bulleted list of certain events or actions that happen in each part of the story's act, the beginning, middle and end. In previous posts i wrote one line examples of my story, while it helped me get initiated, i still need more of a guidance to how to make the story be portray effectively in 2 minutes, since i cannot make it any longer than that and that limits the amount of pondering and actions done by character that seem to have no connection to the plot advancing, while they are welcomed in longer films, i cannot afford to waste time in those type of actions. Many of the advice that i have looked for online gives overall ideas of the beats to be achieved in a story. For example, the "big debate", the problem the character has and how it will impede or help them get to a goal, they cannot be the same person that they were at the beginning of the script. These overall ideas are good to realize to form a story and put the idea to be written, however, I will follow them loosely as i write my beat sheet, since i already have a vague idea of the beat sheet that will help me the best, not wanting to change my story to fit into the mold, unless it is extremely necessary due to time constrains or other issues. 

My story beat sheet will be divided into the different acts, as seen in the infographic. My division will be taken out of my script, including the "inciting incident", what happens that leads to "plot point 1", in act 1, presenting the characters and the premise. Act 2 follows through this plot point and introduces the "Midpoint", halfway through the story's journey, and finishing the "plot point 2". The story usually reaches its "climax" somewhere near the beginning of Act 3, ending in the "payoff" to the story's mission or goal, either good or bad, and the "resolution", how the characters have reacted to the previous payoff and the overall journey. I will not include a Plot B nor much side character development, due to time. 

In this way, organizing what the ideas and forms to do with my script itself, i found it helpful to revisited the idea of beat sheets and how to form them. I will revisit my script once more and read it to its entirely, even though sometimes i find it very awkward to see what my past self has done. After that, i will come back with the entire beat sheet structure, and with the things that i missed before. 

Citations:

Hellerman, Jason. “Three Act Structure: Breaking Down Acts One, Two, & Three in Movies.” No Film School, No Film School, 5 Apr. 2019, nofilmschool.com/Three-act-structure.

Waugh, Jacqueline, and Troy Carpenter. “How to Write an Awesome Beat Sheet for Your Screenplay.” Industrial Scripts®, 6 Dec. 2019, industrialscripts.com/beat-sheet/#:~:text=A%20beat%20sheet%20is%20a,emotional%20points%20in%20your%20screenplay.