I wanted to explain my process of creating my first Beat Board for my first screenplay – ALAN SMITHEE AND THE TRICKED OUT CADILLAC. I learned screenwriting from Save The Cat (Blake Snyder) and Naomi Beaty (Write and Co). To write, I use Final Draft 11. I hope you find this useful.
A Beat Board is like a road map. You don’t drive from LA to NY without looking at a map. Same for writing. You don’t start writing on page 1 and continue until page 120 without planning it out.
A Beat Board has both differences and similarities to storyboards. A distinction is they read more like a series of connected lines of text or illustrations, similar to a children’s storybook (but not at all childlike). The series of written sentences, or single drawings, can depict scenes in a prospective film. Even a single picture can express complex story elements.
In the field, directors often use beat boards to pitch their stories to the people involved in the making of a given project, such as producers, broadcasters, and other investors. For students, beat boards are a good way to visualize project ideas and present as proposals. The boards begin to form story, characters, and art direction. They suggest design, colour, lighting and shading, and the like, with simple suggestions of detail.
A story beat is an element, like a character’s action, event, and so on, that moves a story forward or is a noteworthy turning point. They are visual/aural sentences. Beat boards are the bare bones and basic structure of the story. It is a visual outline. They help to keep the theme of the piece in sight and in focus.
My Social Media links are at the bottom of every page.
From this website you can download Pictures, Headshots, Character and Body Shots, Behind the Scenes photos.
On the Resume‘ page, you can see some of the shows I’ve worked on.
On the Video page, are many reels from the various Film, TV, New Media, Industrial, and Theatre shows I have worked on. Many people call themselves an “actor”, but here you can actually see my work.
I have worked as a Bartender for longer than I want to admit. I can teach you how to make a proper Martini.
Of course, you will want to Contact me after watching all my video and reading this fabulous content.
There are many other Chris Rogers on IMDB, but I own the SAG-AFTRA name Chris Rogers. I tried to reserve the website name ChrisRogers dot com, but can’t because a writer in Texas owns that url.
