'Country Life' Beat Sheet.

Project title: Country Life.

Genre: Romantic Comedy.

Date: 12/02/2014.

1. Opening Image (1): 

The opening image would be the busy landscape of a large, American city - such as New York, for example. There would be crowds of people and queues of traffic, and it would just seem like an extremely busy and noisy environment. This would then be contrasted by shots of the peaceful countryside town with only a few people passing what seems like the only few, small shops in the town. There would be barely any cars - if any at all - and it all seems extremely calm and relaxed. These shots would cut back and forth to each other to show the extreme differences between the two locations, and slowly introduce the main two characters and Jason's 'friend' without much dialogue.

2. Theme Stated (5): 

Not decided on 100%, but something about friends and family being more important than wealth, and how it's so easy to lose someone without realising how much they may mean to you.

3. Set-Up (1-10): 

Jason's father dies, and he is told through a phone conversation, asking if he'd like to attend the funeral. He flies back and travels to the countryside to be there and seems to expect to inherit everything his father had, which would in turn solve the debts that he had worked himself into. He seems to make a mess of things, however, and accidentally insults a few people by thinking they are lesser than him simply because they do not live in a big city.

4. Catalyst (12): 

Instead of inheriting everything, the will states that he is entitled to only half of his father's belongings - including the farm itself - but only as long as the farmhand by the name of Anne owns the other half, and Jason stays there to help her run it.

5. Debate (12-25): 

Jason does not want to run a farm, and instead wants to sell it. He is unable to, however, because Anne owns one half of the rights to everything. He knows that moving back to the city without anything at all would only cause him more trouble, however, as loan sharks and repo men have been pestering his apartment for a little while now and this could be a fresh start where they don't know his location.

6. Break Into Two (25):

Jason decided to give the farm a chance and arranges for his things to be moved there, much to Anne's disappointment as she believed that he would simply leave the farm to her and move back to the city.

7. B. Story ( 30): 

Anne's gay friend, Jeremiah, is introduced as her best friend, often giving her advice. He's something of a failure when it comes to relationships and always seems to go after the wrong guys - as much as he can give good advice to other people. Jeremiah also seems to take an interest in Jason.

8. Fun And Games (30-55): 

Anne teaches Jason the ropes of running the farm as she learnt from his father. He struggles with the majority of the jobs, and finds it difficult because of his pampered city life and this often ends him in small dilemmas that she has to get him out of, which leads to the majority of comedy aspects. Jeremiah also adds to the comedy of the film by appearing from time to time and making odd comments and doing the occasional amusing thing or two.

9. Midpoint (55): 

Jason and Anne seem to have fallen for each other at this point, although the loan sharks have found out his new address and are once again sending him threats which he chooses to hide from Anne instead of warning her.

10. Bad Guys Close In (55-75): 

When Anne is out of the farm, the loan sharks show up to demand the money that Jason owes. Not wanting to hand anything over to them, they forcibly take what they can to make up half of his debts, destroying a few items that were precious to Anne in the process.

11. All Is Lost (75): 

Anne returns to find the farm trashed and Jason finally admits to her about the debts. She believes that he was simply pretending to like her so that he could get the money to pay them off, and storms out, wanting nothing to do with him or the farm as she moves back to live with her family a little distance away.

12. Dark Night Of The Soul (75-85): 

Jason mopes around in the farm for a while seeming unsure of what to do - he grew to love both the farm and Anne and does not want to sell it nor be away from her, but doesn't see much of a choice as he cannot find any other way to pay off his debts and therefore debates on selling it like he was originally planning to.

13. Break Into Three (85): 

Jeremiah manages to convince Jason to set things straight with Anne and go after her, and also informs him of the local community who would be willing to help settle his debts in return after all that his father had done for them. He also tells him that he can fix whatever it was that was important to Anne that the loan sharks badly damaged.

14. Finale (85-110): 

Jason travels to where Anne was staying and explains things properly, and tells her that he may have wanted to sell the farm to pay off the debts at first but soon changed his mind once he got to know her and the other people in the small countryside town. Somehow he manages to make her see, and she agrees to come back to the farm with him to try and make things right. As they return to the farm, they learn that the loan sharks are paid off by a combined effort of the townsfolk and that Jeremiah managed to fix the object for Anne, but gave Jason credit for it instead. Jason begins to work on a business idea for the farm to try and give improve the profits and one day pay the townsfolk back.

15. Final Image (110): 
The final scene of the film should be once again cut back and forth between the contrasting environments of the city and the countryside, but this time Jason's 'friend' is alone in the city looking miserable, and Jason is with Anne in the countryside looking happy. The last shot should be of some kind of advertisement in the city for Jason's new - and now somewhat successful - business that he began to start on the farm.