The Visitor from Elsewhere

When I was first getting started in the screenwriting game, oh these many months ago, my choices at first seemed pretty limited to highly priced, albeit feature-rich software programs that, while offering tremendous benefits were priced way out of the range of the the fledgeling filmmaker/screenwriter.

Final Draft sells for $229 at the Writers Store.  A guy named Peter Illif touts it on the Writer’s Store web site:

“Final Draft 7 is spectacular. It lets me build my story on scene cards, then allows me to see that outline and my script pages at the same time. This is a tremendous tool well worth the price of admission. With Final Draft 7, they’ve moved from a software that formats your work to one that actually helps you write better.”

~~ Peter Iliff – Varsity Blues, Under Suspicion, Patriot Games, Point Break

Movie Magic Screenwriter also sells for $229 too at the Writers Store. This one offers a lot of customization which is funny because the thing being constantly being drummed into the heads of first time screenwriters is that standardization is the thing, i.e., namely that the last thing you want to do is give yourself away as a rube to industry professionals who can spot one oh so easily if your margins are off or if you leave orphans and widows in your scene directions.

Dramatica Pro 4. The Writer’s Store wants $229 for this one too. No doubt about it ladies and gents, 229 is a popular number with these guys and are definitely competing to get the most money out of your wallet just to format your screenplay for you.  Dramatica Pro 4 gets Wes Craven, the horror movie avatar to wax lyrical on the Writers Store web site:

“At the beginning of the project, Dramatica Pro is great…. It puts you so far ahead. Again, it saves you time because you’re not writing stuff you’ll eventually have to throw away because you hadn’t thoroughly thought it through.”

–Wes Craven, Writer/Director/Producer

Script Buddy was the first piece of freeware scriptwriting software I found. I liked that it would actually format my script for me so I could focus on the things I need to focus on such as the story I wanted to tell. But I soon hit a wall in that you never really “owned” your script in the sense that it never resided on my computer but had to remain on the Script Buddy server. Now, I know what geeks call “cloud computing” is all the rage these days but I still want to have a copy of my work on my computer. Maybe they need you to visit their website to write your screenplay so they can earn ad revenue or something but their way just didn’t work for me.  So although Script Buddy does format your script for you, it was still missing something.

Celtx is a true friend to screenwriters and the screenwriting software I would recommend to anyone. It’s “Open Source” and has a lot of neat features that sets it apart from other free alternatives.  The thing I like about it the most is that it is so easy to use. The formatting is all done for you. It’s based on the Firefox web browser and this makes it extremely easy to figure out because it uses the same conventions as Firefox.

When you need to share your script with your actors all you have to do is save it to a PDF file and send it off as an attachment. Oh, and did I mention it was free?  Anyway, this is the software I would recommend without reservation. It’s a true Web 2.0 app. You can nest all kinds of information in it.  For The Visitor from Elsewhere, I have a tab for all of our actor’s addresses, e-mail addresses, cell phones, home phones, you name it, right there in a tab. I have coverage notes on my screenplay from my friend Ingrid Stobbe. I have cut and pasted all kinds of things into different tabs. Notes on characters, news stories that helped me with character development, you name it, all in one convenient place.  It has a place for you to jot down random, unstructured notes and you can even story board with it. It comes with a production schedule and calendar to help you produce. You can also save “snapshots” of your work to their server in case anything catastrophic happens. It’s always a good idea to make multiple backups of your work and Celtx makes it easy but your actual script is still on your hard drive where it belongs. Just make sure you back it up to a thumb drive or an external drive as well.

The moral of our story boys and girls is that you can pay a lot for a lot of bells and whistles or you can save some money and get Celtx.  Then use the extra money for a real screenwriting class if that’s what you need. Remember, to write a screenplay, you is all you need.