Post 4: Beats

Beating is a Hollywood term for beating out an idea - a beat is when something happens.
Ideally a five minute short film will have 8 - 12 major beats in the story.

Example of breaking a short film down into beats:
Beat 1 - Introduce the world the film will be in
Beat 2 - Introduce the character
Beat 3 - Introduce the problem
Beat 4 - How the character chooses to solve the problem
Beat 5 - The character experiences a major set back
Beat 6 - The character is almost defeated
Beat 7 - The character rejects a solution
Beat 8 - The character discovers a solution/or not.

http://www.shortoftheweek.com/2012/11/30/blind-spot/

 Short of the week

Beat 1 -  A man is driving in a car along the motorway
Beat 2 -  The man calls the airport
Beat 3 - The man is trying to change his flight time
Beat 4 - He is unaware to the disaster happening in the background
Beat 5 - He starts to get irate and gets put through to a different airport service
Beat 6 - He is now trying to get his ticket out the plane while driving
Beat 7 - Emergency Services whizz past him to get to the disaster
Beat 8 - The traffic stops and so does he

I feel that looking at the beats within a short film has really focussed me on the matter that me and my group need to make sure that we have a lot of action within the scenes to keep the beats up.