Mac tutorials › Story
StoryBuild a screenplay from the Beat Board
Turn your scene cards into screenplay scenes after checking the order and the headings.
Before you start
- The Beat Board has scene cards outside the Parking Lot.
Steps
Click Build Screenplay in the toolbar.
The sheet is available from both the Beat Board and the Outline.
Read the sheet Build Screenplay from Beat Board.
It says: Preview the order before anything is created. Cards are used in Beat Board order, Parking Lot cards are excluded, and nothing is created until you confirm. A yellow warning appears when cards have no valid scene heading. It says OpenFrame never makes up a heading.
In the table, look at each row: the number, the card with its path, the Heading box and the Include tick.
Click a Heading box marked Add a heading… and type one, for example INT. POLICE STATION - NIGHT. A Heading needed label shows beside rows without one. Leave out removes a row from the build, and the Include tick does the same.
Untick Include on cards you do not want yet.
The foot counts what will be built, for example 1 of 5 cards will be built. Cards you leave out are not created and not changed.
Under How to use the card description, choose Use as a scene planning note (default) or Insert as temporary action text.
The first keeps the description as a note outside the printed script. The second inserts editable draft text that you are expected to rewrite.
Under Destination, choose New Screenplay and give it a title, or New Draft in the existing screenplay, then click Build Screenplay.
New Draft in the existing screenplay is greyed out until a screenplay exists. New Screenplay makes a new screenplay with its first draft, named in Title of the new screenplay. Cancel leaves the board as it is.
What you get
The screenplay exists with one scene for each card you built, in board order.
Watch out for
- Every card you include needs a heading. Add headings to the rows marked Heading needed, or leave those rows out.
- Parking Lot cards are never built.