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Beat is a visual, node based space for writing stories and organizing every idea that builds them: beats, references, characters, and the look of each scene. I made it because I think in pictures as much as in words.
Completely free. Not for sale. No account, no tracking. Your files stay yours.
0 downloads and countingA walkthrough of me using it: the board, the references, location scouting, the Set Plan, and the link to Claude.
Docs, Notion, Pinterest, chats: a story ends up scattered across five apps. Beat is one infinite board that holds the whole thing, the writing and the ideas and how they connect, where you can see it all at once.
An infinite visual board where every idea is a node. Beats, notes, characters, locations and props, all as cards you move, group, connect and @mention.
Lay out story moments, link them into a spine, and explore alternate versions side by side, with tones, slug lines, shot type, duration and a live runtime meter. Start from classic structures: three act, Hero's Journey, Save the Cat, the story circle.
Hand it off or keep building elsewhere: all your media in tidy folders inside a .zip, a Markdown file of the whole project with selectable prompts built in for any AI chat, a Word document organized exactly as you built it, and PDF overviews and storyboards.
Drop in a link and Beat grabs video and images from almost any site. A custom video player gives you frame by frame control to lift the exact still or GIF straight into your project's media pool.
Drop a real place on a map, pull up street view, and grab the exact angle as a still. Each location lives on the board with your beats and references, so the place and the scene that happens there stay together.
A full screen, overhead scene planner you attach to any beat. There's no simple way to plan lighting and blocking visually, so I built one that thinks the way a director and DP do on set.
One click links Beat to Claude through MCP. Instead of copying and pasting into a chatbot, the AI works on your real project: continue the spine, build a character bible, restructure acts, critique the structure, even read your docs and adjust Set Plans.
No price, no business model, no upsell. I built it for myself and I give it away. That is the whole idea.
Nothing to sign up for, nothing watched. Open it and work.
Every project is a folder on your Mac. Offline and yours, back it up however you like.
Beat is young and moving fast. Here is what is live today, and this list grows with every update.
Beat is for the community, and the best version of it comes from the people who actually use it. I want your honest take: what helps, what breaks, what's missing. Send it my way and it gets better for everyone.
"I built this tool entirely for myself, and it's completely free. I'm sharing it because I think other people like me could use it too."
— João Lutz
Beat will always be free. If it helped you, you can buy me a coffee.
What Beat is, what it replaces, and how to start, free.
Yes. Beat is completely free, with no account, no tracking, and no upsell, and it is never going to be for sale. I built it for myself and I give it away.
Many people use it that way. Beat puts story beats, references, characters, locations, a shot and coverage list, and an overhead lighting and blocking diagram on one visual canvas, so it covers a lot of what people reach for paid tools like StudioBinder, Shot Designer or Milanote to do, without a subscription.
An overhead scene planner you attach to any beat. It has cameras with a real field of view by focal length, real fixtures like softbox, fresnel, LED and china ball, and light that bounces, blocks and diffuses through cards, flags, walls and windows, all to real world scale. It is a proper lighting and blocking diagram you can export as an image.
It connects to Claude through MCP, so the AI works on your real project rather than copied and pasted text. It can continue your spine, build a character bible, restructure acts, critique structure, and even read your docs and adjust Set Plans. It is optional, and Beat works fully without it.
A zip of all your media in tidy folders, a Markdown file of the whole project with prompts built in for any AI chat, a Word document organized exactly as you built it, and PDF overviews and storyboards. Version 1.5 adds production breakdown sheets and a Fountain screenplay export.
Yes. Beat is a universal app that runs natively on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs, on modern macOS. It is signed and packaged as a clean dmg, so it opens in one simple step with no Apple account needed.
Download it, drop your story beats onto the canvas, pin references next to them, add your characters and locations, branch alternate versions of a scene, and build a Set Plan for the shots you want staged a specific way. Then export a clean brief or storyboard to share with your crew. It is all free.
Beat is free for everyone who uses it, and it always will be. Beyond that, I am looking for partners, sponsors and investors to help it grow, I am open to building custom versions of Beat for the institutions and teams that want them, and I would love to connect Beat with the tools filmmakers already use. If any of this sounds like you, let's talk.
I would love to build custom versions of Beat for film schools and education programs, shaped around how you teach and made for your students.
A custom Beat for production teams, with cloud based project storage where anyone on the production can explore the board, gather insights and stay in sync.
If you run a tool filmmakers already use, from reference and image libraries to design and storyboard apps, let's connect it with Beat so they work together. I think there is something good here for both of us.
If you want to back where Beat is going, as a sponsor, an investor or a partner, I would love to hear from you.
If that sounds like you, write to me directly and let us figure out something good.
Email me about partneringNative macOS · no account · always free, never for sale.
Beat is free and not from the Mac App Store, so the first time you open it your Mac warns you once. It is completely safe. The app is signed and runs on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs. You do this once, then Beat opens with a normal double click forever.
The first time, your Mac shows a message like Apple could not verify Beat is free of malware. That is the normal prompt for any app made outside the App Store, and it is safe. Here is how to get past it, one time:
On older macOS there is a faster way: right click Beat in your Applications folder (or hold Control and click), choose Open, then click Open in the dialog.
That almost always means the download did not finish, or the file got re-compressed along the way. First, simply download Beat.dmg again from the folder, a fresh copy usually fixes it. If it still happens, open the Terminal app (press Command and Space, type Terminal, press Return) and paste this line, then press Return:
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Beat.app
Then open Beat normally. You only ever do this once.
Prefer to watch someone do it? Short videos: opening an app from an unidentified developer, and if you ever need it, clearing the “damaged” message in Terminal. Still stuck? Email me at joaolutz.mb@gmail.com and I will personally help you get it running.
Beat is free and always will be. If it helped, a coffee is appreciated, never expected.
Pay with PayPalTell me a little about you and how you would like to work together. I read every message myself.