THOUGHTS
ON WRITING - STYLE, VOICE, FORMAT, BUSINESS
and
other knobby screenwriting questions
SCREENWRITING SOFTWARE
Hollywood Screenwriter vs. Final Draft
Two armed keyboard camps
There are two major screenwriting software programs on the market. Final Draft and Hollywood Screenwriter (at least that seems to be the current name) The programs operate essentially the same for most basic writing functions. Choose a style, then some variation of tab and return to take you through the script writing process of action, character name, dialogue. But they begin to differ in some of the more advanced functions. Screenplay Systems / Entertainment Partners which owns Screenwriter and based on the earlier ScriptThing engine which they bought a several years ago, has designed the program to tie into their other software packages like MovieMagic Scheduling - and Final Draft is a more stand alone program but has established a solid share of the market and adherents mostly through a clearer brand identity. I personally have more experience with Screenwriter, which I chose because of its ablity to directly export to EP's Movie Magic Scheduling and budgeting programs for doing breakdowns for budgeting.
Even though I owned earlier screenwriting software, (Scriptware, which I mostly hated) and the Screenwriter, through a few name and format variations. I continued to write in a simple and very effective basic Microsoft Word format. (See my earlier post on “Keep it real simple: The only screenwriting format you will ever need*”). I’m now writing in Hollywood Screenwriter because of its production functions and because I like its ability to “cheat” line spacings and pages. I happen to hate breaking dialogue blocks across pages, so I spend a lot of editing time on how the dialogue falls on the page.
The real issue of which software you use comes if you collaborate with another writer, or God forbid, get hired on a tv series or get one of your scripts bought and move into production. The nut comes in that these two major programs do not directly translate to one another. If someone sends you an email of their Final Draft file and you have Screenwriter, you cannot open it. And vice versa. To communicate between these two competing companies’ software you have to save the file as an .rtf and then import it. But the import is usally not clean and you have to go through the whole script checking to see that it hasn’t turned a character name into a shot or changed dialogue into action. And this process is repeated if you have to send it back the other way!
And different production companies, networks, studios have fallen into one camp or the other and if you find yourself working for them will be required or at least encouraged to work with their favorite. But hopefully they will have paid you enough to go out and get the one they like.
There are some other
programs based on the Microsoft Word screenplay format like the free
format I’ve posted, and they offer some additional functionality.
You can search the The
Writer’s
Store online for what’s
available. If you’re serious about screenwriting you will probably
eventually want one of the two major programs, but with about a $300
list price, maybe sometimes available at a discount price around
$170, until you’re ready to spend the bucks, go ahead and write
a couple of scripts first the simple way. Even through I find the formatting
adjustment
convenient, I really still like that writing in Word forced me to “blue
pencil” edit to make the page breaks work. And in screenwriting,
anything that forces you to edit yourself ain’t a bad thing.
Michael January's credits and films can be found at wingedlionproductions.com
The Writer's
Store (you can use
the search link on this page for books & software
specifically for screenwriters and movie pros, including screenwriting
software).
