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For those who don’t know the tool: Beat is a Mac production-planning application by São Paulo filmmaker João Lutz. It sits after screenplay writing and before, and partly during, principal photography: scripts become visual story beats, shot lists, set diagrams, location plans, call sheets and shoot-day status data. It reads Fountain and Final Draft material, keeps projects locally on the Mac, and can optionally expose project operations to Claude through MCP.
One board, fewer spreadsheets
Beat 2.0 takes a fairly specific problem as its starting point: the screenplay, visual references, shot list, lighting sketch, location notes and call sheet often describe the same production while living in completely separate documents. The app puts those elements onto one node-based canvas. Beats, notes, characters, locations and props exist as movable cards that can be grouped, connected and referenced from one another. A parallel Writing Mode presents the board as a document, with edits propagating between the card view and written view.
That makes the interesting part less about another digital corkboard and more about data reuse. A shot linked to a beat can inherit its description, duration, cast and location. The shot list therefore does not have to become an independent spreadsheet that quietly diverges from the current scene plan after revision number seven. The same principle extends downstream. Beat can generate a call sheet from the production day, location, call time and crew information, and its on-set mode continues using the same shot data rather than starting another tracking document.
Scripts go in, production data comes out
Beat documents screenplay import for Fountain and Final Draft files. Fountain is a plain-text screenplay syntax built around recognisable screenplay elements such as scene headings, character names and dialogue. Final Draft’s standard document format is the XML-based .fdx format, although Beat does not publish a detailed compatibility matrix identifying which Final Draft generations or file variants it accepts.
On import, Beat says it creates one group per act and one beat per scene, with detected characters becoming cards connected to the text. That gives the screenplay an immediate structural representation rather than treating it simply as a PDF pinned beside the planning work.
Import should not be confused with round-trip screenplay interchange. Beat’s public documentation says it reads Fountain and Final Draft material, while its documented output options are Markdown, Word, PDF and a ZIP containing project media. It does not document export back to Fountain or Final Draft, nor does it claim revision round-tripping with a screenwriting application. So, script Lock means script lock.
The shot list listens
Each shot can be linked to a story beat, with shot type, description, duration, cast and location flowing into the shot list. The result is that story structure and shooting structure remain connected, while still allowing different orders. That is useful on set, where narrative order is rarely shooting order. Beat’s full-screen shoot-day mode lets the operator mark shots done or skipped, advance the selected take and add observations while leaving the underlying story order untouched.
A day clock measures progress relative to the crew call. The shot list also stacks estimated shot durations along the planned day and overlays daylight, night and golden-hour periods. This is still scheduling based on the durations entered by the user, not a crystal ball for company moves, lens changes or a generator deciding to develop character.
At wrap, Beat can record completed, skipped and carried setups, move outstanding work into the following day and generate a wrap report.
Set Plan thinks in metres
The Set Plan is Beat’s overhead planning workspace for blocking, cameras and lighting. It attaches directly to a beat, keeping the diagram with the scene rather than as a detached image in another application.
Camera symbols display a field of view based on focal length, while blocking paths can include facing direction. The lighting palette includes softboxes, Fresnels, LEDs, Kino-style fixtures, china balls and practicals, with controls described for intensity, colour temperature and beam falloff.
The scene also contains bounce cards, flags, diffusion, walls, doors and windows, and Beat describes light as bouncing, blocking or passing through those elements. Scale is more explicit. Beat says all 48 Set Plan symbols use real-world dimensions. A car, for example, is represented at 4.5 metres. Rooms can be defined in metres or feet and the completed plan exported as an image.
For directors, DPs and gaffers, this can make a diagram more useful than a sketch where a two-metre soft source and a dining chair have somehow achieved equal dimensions.
Locations get a clock in the sky
Location cards can be pinned to a map and retain coordinates. Beat also provides a street-level reference workflow for capturing a view into the project. For a pinned location, the application displays the sun path for a selected date, including azimuth plus golden- and blue-hour information. A planned scene time can then travel with the beat into production documents.
That is an unusually production-specific connection between a creative board and the physical shooting day. A golden-hour exterior stops being merely a note saying “around sunset” and becomes attached to the selected location and planned time.
Local-first has an asterisk
Beat’s public site describes project storage as local and offline. Every project is stored as a folder on the user’s Mac, with no application account and no tracking required for the core workflow. That architecture is significant for small productions handling unreleased scripts, casting material and location information. It also makes ordinary filesystem backup possible without first negotiating with another subscription platform.
The Claude integration is a separate matter. Beat connects to Claude using Model Context Protocol, or MCP. MCP is a protocol for exposing context, resources and tools between AI applications and external systems. It is not itself an AI model and it does not make Beat’s project processing generative by magic. Beat says its MCP connection can let Claude create projects, beats and groups, place images, build linked shot lists, populate set plans, export treatments and check work.
The awkward bit is Gatekeeper
Installation currently requires more attention than the rest of the local-first pitch. Beat’s website describes the Mac build as a universal application for Apple Silicon and Intel. It is distributed directly as a roughly 60 MB disk image rather than through the Mac App Store. More importantly, the current download is not notarized by Apple. Beat’s own instructions tell users that macOS will block first launch and that they must open System Settings, go to Privacy & Security and manually choose Open Anyway. The current build is ad hoc signed, has no Team ID and is therefore blocked by Gatekeeper.
Apple’s Mac security documentation is less cheerful about the override than Beat’s download page. Apple states that software from an unknown developer has not been checked in the same way as identified and notarized software and explicitly warns users to be cautious before overriding the security setting.
For an individual filmmaker that means an extra installation step. For a managed studio fleet it can be a deployment problem, because a manual security exception is very different from distributing a notarized Developer ID build through normal workstation management. Lutz says he intends to correct the signing situation. Until that happens, teams should regard the current Gatekeeper state as a real deployment constraint, not merely an inconvenient dialog.
Free is pricing, not a licence
Beat is offered at no charge, with the developer stating there is no account, no upsell and no plan to sell the application. That establishes the price. It does not, by itself, establish a software licence model or commercial-use grant. Accordingly, Beat should not be described as open source, freeware with a particular redistribution licence, or commercially licensed simply because the download costs nothing. The developer also invites sponsorship, investment, integrations and custom institutional or production-company versions, including possible cloud-based project storage for customised deployments.
A production planner, not a finishing tool
Beat does not try to replace an NLE, colour system or postproduction asset manager. Its job is earlier and more operational: converting screenplay structure into planning data, then keeping that data useful as the production gets physically closer to the camera.
The stronger workflow idea is continuity of information. Script scenes create beats. Beats feed shots. Shots feed the shooting day. Locations contribute solar information. Set plans remain attached to scenes. The call sheet draws from the same production data.
Whether that consolidation is preferable to dedicated scheduling, storyboarding and call-sheet systems will depend on crew scale and departmental boundaries. A solo director or small commercial team may value one local project more than a large production office that already has specialised databases, permissions and established hand-off procedures.
| Product | Beat |
| Developer | João Lutz |
| Version | 2.0 |
| Availability | Direct Mac download from the developer website |
| Operating systems | macOS |
| Hardware | Universal build for Apple Silicon and Intel Macs |
| Screenplay input | Fountain and Final Draft files |
| Document output | Markdown, Word and PDF; media can be exported as a ZIP |
| Project storage | Local project folder on the Mac; developer states no application account or tracking |
| AI integration | Claude through MCP |
| Installation | Direct DMG; current release requires a manual macOS Gatekeeper override on first launch |
| Notarization | Current public download is not notarized by Apple |
| Pricing | Free; developer states no upsell and not for sale |
| Download | Beat for Mac |
