ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

9 years, 10 months ago - Dan Selakovich

It seems most everyone is saying the same thing: use whatever you want until some big shot wants it, then switch to Final Draft. And they'll want it on the latest version of FD. So if you buy it tomorrow, and don't sell a script for five years...

9 years, 10 months ago - Lee 'Wozy' Warren

Never had any glitches on FD. If you're a pro you'll more that likely be on FD. I don't know anyone worth their salt on anything else. As a producer I would questioning the commitment of any writer that comes to me and not prepared to invest the small sum needed for FD. Consider the camera op who has to fork out tens of thousands for his kit or the sound guy or ... You get my drift.

Wanna write like a pro... Use the pro kit!

Wozy

9 years, 10 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

In that case, I'd be inclined to spend the money on a nice week in a cottage so you can write without distraction! Just my 2p, I'm sure others have different experiences and will contribute their thoughts :)

BTW all the studios do (or certainly used to) have subtly different 'standards', and use that as an initial filter to pick which of the 1000 scripts/week they receive :-$

9 years, 10 months ago - Charis Orchard

forgot to mention you can use it anywhere and share it with anyone as it's net-based. I have shared scripts with co-writers in Africa and the US. Amazing.

9 years, 10 months ago - Lee 'Wozy' Warren

Excellent points on producer interaction and MM...

9 years, 10 months ago - Karel Bata

I remember when you had to buy a book to learn how to format a script. There was a chapter in Adventures in the Screen Trade (a must-read BTW). Used to be a lot of discussion about different formats, and how for Hollywood you shouldn't use A4 and had to bind them with studs which showed you were a serious writer. (Does all that still hold true?)

It was a bit of a distraction, and the nice thing about dedicated software is that it stops you having to think about all that. I use Final Draft. Works a treat. But Paddy's right - if Celtx does the job these days use the money to go somewhere quiet and write.

9 years, 10 months ago - jane foster

The way I look at this debate is this - Industry people recognize Final Draft in the same way they recognize Word and not the 'other' word processing apps out there - It makes life simple. So the way I look at it is this - D'you want an exec to look at what software you write on or d'you want him to read your script? - What matters is strong writing that is easy for stressed producers and execs to read and recognize, and that helps if it's FD! Then you might actually get some work out of it. Don't buck trends just because you can. So, for the small investment FD requires, just get on with it and do it! Why make getting writing work even more difficult than it already is? And for the record - FD is compatible with MM, which is another reason why producers like it.

9 years, 10 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

The film industry has a lot of bits of software to solve problems that don't really exist. Movie Magic Budgeting has some upsides, and plenty of downsides. MM Scheduling is better than manual stripboards, but doesn't replace the actual hard work. Vista accounting can produce a CTC, but so can a well-structured Excel sheet. Avid can speed up an edit, but it won't *do* the edit. Scriptwriting software is another of those tools.

Celtx is free and EXCELLENT VALUE at that price-point. You use it, it makes life a bit easier, but you still need to write the story and words. That's the hard bit, and the bit that spending money won't make any easier. If you are doing it professionally, then there is a marginal advantage to being able to reformat scripts to the very slightly different page layouts requested by each studio, but until you are at that stage (ie selling scripts), is there anything to actuaally gain?

Rather, what is it you are finding you cannot do with the tools you already have, and how do you believe replacing the tool will solve that problem? You may find you have a very legitimate need to spend a few hundred bucks, you may find it's just because 'industry standard' tools have some artificial veneer of greatness. I use MM Budgeting because I am made to by clients. It does NOTHING that I can't do at least as well in Excel with a bit of prep, and has an ugly and unhelpful interface (want to copy/paste a list of names from a spreadsheet into rows/accounts in MMB? Tough! Want to take accounts and demote several at once to details? Tough! Want a good-looking report on custom fields and to interrogate your data? You guessed it. And you have to keep Java installed and current, so it looks like a 1998 desktop app, doesn't share nicely with the clipboard and is a massive security/virus attack vector). I have to use it because that's what clients require, for goodness knows what reason. Don't fall for the marketing, many tools are 'industry standards', but are hated by some industry people.

9 years, 10 months ago - Dan Selakovich

@Rickardo Beckles-Burrowes I use none of the bells and whistles. Not one. For example, you can tag elements of your script so when budgeting, it gives you a breakdown when using Movie Magic, or other budgeting/scheduling app. But for me personally, and frankly, a lot of PMs and ADs I know, we do it the old fashioned way: by hand, a page at a time, and the tags are a "backup". If everything washes out fine with the tags, then you can use that aspect of the program. But I've never seen FD NOT screw up when talking to MM or other budgeting software. You can't trust, or shouldn't trust, that the computer is going to do the work correctly. Plus, doing it by hand the first time allows you to REALLY know the script down to the finest detail. But that has nothing to do with writing.

As far as writing goes, I use the scene cards, but all script writing apps have that, right? As well as scene numbers: on or off.

FD has voices that can read your script to you. That's fucking ridiculous, and a gimmick. Computers can't act. (Well, not yet, anyway).

FD does come with each studio's format preloaded. There's basically no difference between them. And pointless for a spec script. I've optioned two scripts over the years, and nobody asked that they be reformatted for each studio the producer submitted it to.

In the end, all of these programs do the housekeeping; putting (CONT) in the right place. Remembers the character names so you don't have to type them out. Tabs you to the correct place for everything... In other words: you don't have to think about formatting AT ALL.

I wrote my first feature script in 1978. So, comparatively, anything is better than a typewriter. But one bit of screenwriting software isn't better than any other... until you've sold it, and the studio wants it re-written.

9 years, 10 months ago - Dan Selakovich

I was fine, Karel, as there were no alternatives (besides electric with a correcting ribbon, or a manual)! A few years ago, I pulled out my old typewriter (don't ask why I've held onto it all these years), and hit the tab button just for fun. Yep; all the tabs were set for a screenplay.

9 years, 10 months ago - Rickardo Beckles-Burrowes

Hi Charis,

I didn't even know Adobe had a screenwriting software, so thanks for your comment. I'll check this software out as well.

9 years, 10 months ago - Rickardo Beckles-Burrowes

Hey Christopher,

Given some of the comments r.e. FD do you think you'd consider progressing to FD or continue sticking with Fade In?

9 years, 10 months ago - Rickardo Beckles-Burrowes

Thanks for your comment Nick.

9 years, 10 months ago - Rickardo Beckles-Burrowes

Hey Dan,

I'm guessing you use Final Draft, so, what are the pros and cons of it for you?

9 years, 10 months ago - Rickardo Beckles-Burrowes

Thanks for following up Dan - really useful feedback.

9 years, 10 months ago - Rickardo Beckles-Burrowes

Hi Stephan,

Have you also moved from final Draft to Fade In? And if so, what have you gained from using Fade In?

9 years, 10 months ago - Rickardo Beckles-Burrowes

Hey Stuart,

What's your take on using Celtx?

9 years, 10 months ago - Charis Orchard

The best screen writing program on the market is adobe story and it's FREE to use. You save your current script as a pdf and then import it into story and viola, it formats it for you. Got to love Adobe! They are my favourite company. The next best thing about Story is that you can use it the same way as EP scheduling or scenecronize if you want to do breakdowns and virtually any prod list its all there in the same program. God bless Adobe.

9 years, 10 months ago - Christopher Green

I use Fade In, its about £30 and you download it from the web. It works just the same as Final Draft for a fraction of the cost and it is easy to convert to and from Final Draft, PDF etc etc...
Its really easy to use.

9 years, 10 months ago - Nick Goundry

Hi Rickardo. I switched to Final Draft recently after years spent doing my own manual formatting on MS Word. FD can be a little glitchy sometimes - established screenwriters I follow on Twitter complain about this on occasion - but otherwise it's been great.

It seems to be accepted that FD is generally the industry standard. That said, I recently talked to a very experienced script consultant who shuns all formal writing programmes in favour of Word, which he carefully calibrates to industry-standard settings each time he starts a new project.

Bottom line is programmes like FD are useful and easy to use, but you can certainly do without them. The most important thing is just to make sure that when you start sending out your work, it's in a FORM of industry-standard (I know there are subtle differences in demands from different people) and that there are no typos!

In fact, experienced producers have told me that if writers write in an interesting and dynamic way, they're more likely to be forgiven for smaller deviations from industry-standard formats.

9 years, 10 months ago - Dan Selakovich

HA! So true, Paddy! Avid was a pile of shit in the beginning. HATED it. But when it had been around for a few years, producers stopped asking "what have you done" and started asking "which Avid do you own?" Like the machine did the work.

Rickardo, most studios use Final Draft and want you to submit on that. Why? Because they have this app that flags changes. So if they give you a note, you can no longer bullshit them and say you changed your script. (And believe me, bullshitting them was a piece of cake back in the day).

As for the actual writing? Who cares. Go with free. None of them actually help with the writing.

9 years, 10 months ago - Stephan Burn

More and more professionals are switching from Final Draft, renowned for being unstable and poor in interoperability, to Fade In. Fade In can work with Final Draft files just fine, and there are no additional benefits one gets from Final Draft.

9 years, 10 months ago - Karel Bata

How did they cope in the days of typewriters? Some writers still use them...

9 years, 10 months ago - Stuart Wright

When you're submitting spec scripts to people on PDF format what difference does the script software you use make? I have both FD and Fade In. It's only £40 or so and is much more responsive than FD IMHO. Check out the scriptnotes podcast episodes where they have the FD CEO on as a guest. FD isn't the go to pro tool it used to be.