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"

Examples of Breaking a short film in to beats:

Beat1: 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

Bear 8: The character discovers a solution...or sometimes not!

Above is a clip of the short film called 'The Elevator'. Below I am going to go through the different beats that I have noticed in this short film.

Beat 1: The atmosphere of being inside a building is created in this film

Beat 2: A man on his own entering a lift (the character that's introduced)

Beat 3: Overweight people are entering the lift with the character leading him to feel squished

Beat 4: Character escapes from the lift and waits for a new lift with the worry that the lift is going to break down causing them to be stuck

Beat 5: The set back is that the character gets in the lift with people who are coughing

Beat 6: Character is almost defeated as he is over capacitated with germs

Beat 7: Character rejects getting off the lift

Beat 8: The lift opens with the realisation that everyone in the lift has swine flu

Log lines of my film:

Beat 1: Set up the atmosphere of high school setting

Beat 2: Display the life of the character protagonist Skye

Beat 3: The problem is the Queen B's (popular girls) of high school

Beat 4: The character aims to stand up for others and display how

different she is to the other types of girls

Beat 5: Skye finds herself to be set back by rumours that Rachel

and her friends have made up out of spite

Beat 6: Skye becomes defeated by the mean girls temporarily

until she finds herself coming up with other options

Beat 7: As the plot continues Skye remains unsure on how she

can stop this high school madness and improve teenage life

Beat 8: Skye discovers a solution and the Queen Bs of the school

come to realise that in fact they are not as popular as they think

they are. As well as this Skye also has the opportunity to make new

friends even with the mean girls as they come to change.