Beat is a visual, node based space for writing stories and organizing every idea that builds them. This landing is a proper page — and the site underneath it is a real Beat board.
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, 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.
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 list that reads from your beats, call sheets, an overhead lighting and blocking diagram and a full shoot-day mode on one visual canvas, and it imports Fountain and Final Draft screenplays, 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. Every symbol is drawn at real-world scale, a car is 4.5 m and a chair is half a metre. 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. In 2.0 it can build a whole project: create it, write the beats and groups, place images, build linked shot lists, dress set plans and export treatments, and it checks its own work for errors. 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 2.0 adds call sheets, wrap reports, printable day sheets, a treatment export and a print-ready page layout, alongside the shot list, production breakdown sheets and Fountain screenplay export from before.
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, then drop your story beats onto the canvas, or drop a screenplay and let the board build itself. Pin references next to them, add your characters and locations, build a Set Plan for the shots you want staged a specific way, and let the shot list read from your beats. Beat writes the call sheet, you run the day from On set, and one button wraps it with a report. It is all free.
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.
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Beat is free for everyone who uses it, and it always will be. Beyond that: partners, sponsors, custom versions for schools and production teams, integrations. I read every message myself.