.claude/skills/video-script-production/references/beat-contract.md

# The beat contract

A script is a chain of **beats**, each 60 to 100 seconds, each doing four things in order. The hook is beat B0 and the close is the last beat; they follow the same contract with the changes noted at the end.

| Step | Job | Declared in the chain as | Test |
|---|---|---|---|
| **Understand** | One idea the viewer can hold. One. | `understand` (one sentence) | Can you say it in under 20 words? If it needs two ideas, split the beat. |
| **Care** | The human reason this matters: whose loss, which belief of the viewer's, what contrast. Comes **before** the data it justifies. | `care`, `care_type`, `care_quote` | Delete the care line: would the next number mean less? If not, the care line is decoration. |
| **Change** | The new understanding. The viewer should hold a different belief at the end of the beat than at the start. | `change` | State the belief before and after. If they are the same, the beat is information, not progress. |
| **Compel** | The last two sentences open a question that **this beat's answer created**, and the next beat answers. | `compel`, `compel_quote`, `link_to_next` | Does the question exist only because of what the beat just said? If it could have been asked at the start, it is a teaser, not a handoff. |

## The link between beats: BUT, THEREFORE, BECAUSE

Between any two consecutive beats, the connective must be one of:

- **THEREFORE**: because of what just happened, this follows. ("Sales had barely moved and profit had gone. So the owners had a choice.")
- **BUT**: what was just set up is reversed or complicated. ("A sensible company stops here. That is not what happened.")
- **BECAUSE**: the next beat explains the last, read backwards. ("The gate stayed shut. Here is why.")

Not allowed between beats: **AND THEN** (also: "next", "meanwhile", "after that", "later", a bare dateline such as "In 2012..." with nothing linking it to the last beat). These make the next beat a new topic, not a consequence. "And" is allowed *inside* the first beat to set shared context (the "A" of Olson's ABT).

### Three tests for a junction

1. **Say it aloud.** Insert "and then" between the two beats. If it reads fine, the junction is flat; rewrite the hinge so "therefore" or "but" is the only word that fits.
2. **Swap test.** Swap the beat with its neighbour. If nothing breaks, they are not linked.
3. **Dependency test.** The first sentence of beat n+1 must pick up something the last sentences of beat n created (a noun, a claim, a question). Say it with the same word ("...find another **business**." / "The other **business** was solar."). The linter checks for a shared content word.

### A BUT must have something to reverse

Plant an expectation in the previous beat on purpose, then break it. "A sensible company, at this point, stops. It sells, it shrinks." sets up "That is not what happened." Without the plant, a BUT is only a plot twist, and plot twists add load without adding meaning.

### Balance

All THEREFORE reads like a proof and goes predictable; all BUT reads like whiplash. Aim for a BUT roughly every second or third junction. The linter reports the mix.

## Hinge lines

A hinge is the sentence pair at the join. Write it first, before the beats on either side. Patterns that work:

- *Prediction, then check*: "If that is true, there should be a sign. So let's check the year to March 2008." (THEREFORE; the next beat's numbers arrive as test results, which makes them mean something.)
- *Plant, then break*: "A sensible company stops. That is not what happened." (BUT)
- *Choice, then pick*: "Live with a smaller business, or find another business. They chose the second." (THEREFORE)
- *Natural objection*: "Seven paise. When most of the money is gone, people ask who took it." (BUT, if the record complicates the obvious answer.)
- *Unanswered because*: "The gate never opened again. Here is why." (BECAUSE)

## Care patterns, strongest first for this audience

1. **Viewer's own belief or decision.** "You may have heard CDs died because of pen drives." "If your edge is being cheapest, this is you."
2. **A person's concrete loss.** Workers at a gate; a lender with a rupee.
3. **Contrast.** Two statements six months apart; a plan against what happened.
4. **Scale in human units.** "About 7 paise for every rupee claimed." Mark derived figures as derived.

## The hook (B0) and the close

- **Hook:** Understand = the subject exists in the viewer's world. Care = a person or the viewer's own stake. Change = the viewer's frame shifts to the core driving loop (see `opening-protocol.md`). Compel = the loop plus the first handoff into B1.
- **Close:** Understand = the thesis in one line. Care = the viewer's use of it. Change = they leave with a test they can apply. Compel = the next video, or the human callback; it closes the spine loop and may open one across videos.

## Before and after

AND THEN (v3 chapter joins): "Then the world moved on from the disc." "In June 2012 it was due..." "Meanwhile the American investor was leaving." "Here is the second number I promised."
Each of those was a topic change held together by the author's list of promises.

BUT/THEREFORE (v4 joins): "So now the owners face a choice." "But there was a problem with the room they were escaping into." "That is not what happened." "Because the repayments kept failing, a lender filed."
Each of those exists only because of the beat before it.