Beat Sheets

Beat Sheet: Pride and Prejudice

Chick 1 says:

I thought for our second beat sheet we’d look at a story as far from Hot Fuzz as possible.  So I chose Pride and Prejudice, the 2005 version starring Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen and directed by Joe Wright.  How will a movie that’s based on a 200-year-old novel line up against our list of beats?

I admit it was more difficult to pick out the beats in this than Hot Fuzz and sometimes I’m not completely sure they were there at all.  Tell me what you think of the scenes I’ve picked out. Read more

Posted on by Chick 1 in Beat Sheets 1,328 Comments

Beat Sheets: Hot Fuzz

Chick 1 says:

Welcome to a new series of posts, Beat Sheets.  A beat sheet is a story structure tool used by many screenwriters, listing out certain events or moments called beats that usually occur in every story.  These beats drive the plot.  The particular beat sheet we’ll be using here was developed by Blake Snyder in his screenwriting book, Save The Cat.  It is very popular among writers in Hollywood today. 

In this series, I’ll follow the plot of different movies and list each point where I think an important beat occurs.  Snyder’s theory is that every great or even good movie, every story has all of these beats in some form.   For the first few posts I’ll list Snyder’s explanation of each beat.  Tell me if you think I’m right.  Or if you think a certain beat doesn’t exist in the movie at all.

For this first one, let’s take a look at Hot Fuzz, the second collaboration by Simon Pegg/Nick Frost/Edgar Wright following Shaun of the Dead.  Like Shaun of the Dead, it’s a funny, sharp story.  The writing and editing are tight, tight, tight.  No line or prop is thrown away from Aaron A. Aaronson to “Swan!”.  Almost everything comes back into the plot.  So let’s dive in.  Obviously SPOILERS FOLLOW. Read more

Posted on by Chick 1 in Beat Sheets 48,217 Comments