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