Notes

Act 1: Introduce characters and establish the world of your story. Where you deliver your hook, or inciting incident. Entice your audience.
Act 2: Bulk of the story takes place. Main characters flaws will come to light, the conflict in the story will rise and the main character will have to overcome their flaws in order to save the day.
Act 3: Where we see the resolution in the story. The growth journey your main character went on to overcome their flaws pays off and they are a new person. Don't forget to show your main character back in their original setting with moments of resolution. Your audience needs a moment of normalcy with the main character before you send them on their way.
Story Beats: Music going from good to bad or positive to negative. Every story has beats. It's the beats in your story that set the pacing and keep the audience engaged.
Suspension of Disbelief: Allowing yourself to believe in something that is not real. Especially when it comes to enjoying a work of fiction. This is goal we are trying to create a story with a visual journey that allows your audience to stay in the story.
Mise en Scene: "What's in the frame?" Be mindful to the picture you are painting. If something is in your frame that doesn't belong your audience will pick up on it and it will take them out of your story.
Tagline or Concept: A 4-5 word phrase or question, This is a great place to launch your story and can be helpful to keep you on track as you go through the process of writing your story.
Outline: It's good to create a brief outline of the story to help get an idea of the big picture before working through the details of the story.
Screenplay: This is the actual story, written in special formatting that allows for quick reading and easy access to details needed for the production. Center aligned (ctrl+shift+E). INT. (or EXT.) - LOCATION - TIME OF DAY || INT. - CLASSROOM - DAY || EXT. - FRONT OF SCHOOL - EARLY MORNING
Descriptive Paragraph: Center aligned (ctrl+shift+L) and doesn't use any special formatting. Describes the scene, what it looks like, what's happening, etc. No adding dialogue here, that comes next.
Dialogue: Dialogue is indented twice (ctrl+]). No tabs or spaces because formatting won't allow. Name should be all caps and bold, the rest of the dialogue is normal formatting. Ex: JOHN: Wow, what a beautiful morning!
Storyboard: When you draw pictures for each scene to give everyone on the team an idea of what the framing will look like. This is a valuable tool during the production process because it allows to get what's in your mind onto paper for the whole team to see. Also allows to process further what you would like the story to look like.
Shot list: A list of all the shots you want to get for each scene. It's easy to get sidetracked, so use this as a checklist to make sure you get all the shots you want.
Location Planning: A very important part of the pre-production process. You will need a location to film your story and you may not always get to use the location you really want. Going through this will allow you to see what is possible, then see what you're able to work through and how you will use what you do have access to, to tell your story. *Depending on whether you get your ideal location or not, you may need to revisit your storyboard and shot list and make adjustments as needed.