http://www.simplyscripts.com/2012/09/24/babz-buzz-23/#comment-6697

Someone asked, " Do you have a guideline or model for beat sheets on your site?"  

Anyone have anything that I could post to the site?  Either a link to or something you've written up?

Don

http://www.blakesnyder.com/2010/01/28/stc-beats-out-avatar/

Here are the beats for Avatar. You can find on other genres also by googling STC Beats Archive. I have saved several genres to help me when I'm creating a beat sheet before sitting down to write a feature. ;)

Super duper helpful....

When I do mine..I start by only putting the beats...I fill in the scenes under the beats later. But it's a great place to start.

Here's one that's widely accepted from the STC list...

http://www.blakesnyder.com/2011/02/25/the-winters-bone-beat-sheet/

Regards,
E.D.

Thanks folks, I'll pass these on to Nancy.

Much appreciated.

Don

I don't like Blake Snyder or his philosophy.

A beat sheet is pretty simple unless she doesn't know what a beat is.

A beat, in a screenplay, is defined as the smallest unit of a scene. An example:

INT.  KITCHEN - DAY

Ray eats breakfast at the table.

Jane reads the newspaper across from him.

RAY
Gimme the sports.

Jane tosses the back pages. They fan out over the table.

Ray wants what Ray gets. End of beat. it could've gone on longer with Jane saying no, but it didn't.

Now, in a beat sheet this would look like this:

1. Ray wants paper. Jane tosses paper.

And then you write what happens next.

For a feature length script, there's going to be a lot of beats. No telling exactly how many.

That's basically it. The more intricate the beat, the more intricate the scene. Each beat works like a scene. One character wants something, there's conflict, and then there's a climax. Beats become scene when its reached its highest, most intense, peak.

Then the next scene begins. Hope this helps.