Final Draft

[Bob Zimmerman]

Not sure where to put this thread,,,but Chris will moved it to the right place!!!
I'm looking at some screenplay software. Final Draft has one that looks really good for use with video. Has anyone tried there stuff?

[Rob Lohman]

Take a look at this thread: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...&threadid=4730

A lot of people seem to really like Final Draft. Try out there demo
at www.finaldraft.com

[Don Donatello]

if you are referring to the AV final draft it needs work ..IMO not worth the $$ ... i have final draft .. when i asked them when would the AV allow you to store photo's, graphics , sound along with the scripting they said look again in 2004

[Jeff Donald]

Wow, over a year away. That's really disappointing.

Jeff

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

I use and like Movie Magic Screenwriter 2000. Hunt around on the web for good deals--you shouldn't have to pay too much for it.

Mark me down for MM2K as well. It's excellent, and it generates awesome production breakdowns. Another thing I like about it is the ease with which it imports and exports other file types. And it writes .pdf files if you want to e-mail a script to somebody who has no scriptwriting software. Beside all that, it's has long been the industry standard in the big production houses.

I used Scriptware for several years before switching to MM2k. It does a decent job and may even be easier to use right out of the box than MM2K is. It also has a pretty decent AV format (but I couldn't tell you if it imports graphics into AV because I never tried). But Scriptware had virtually no production breakdown capability... at least it was nothing to write home about.

Now, if you want to use a screenwriting program that'll make industry snobs think you're a rank amateur, go for Sophocles.

[Bob Zimmerman]

I was looking at Moviemagic too. Thanks for the input on that.
Something about Final Cut AV just looked kind of cheap...thanks again.

[Bob Zimmerman]

Will Moviemagic work on a Mac?

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

The Movie Magic Screenwriter 2000 CD-ROM comes with both Windows and Macintosh (OS 9 I believe) versions.

Charles mentioned Screenwriter's PDF export capability. I can't speak enough towards the usefulness of such a function, for e-mailing non-editable scripts to partners, placing scripts on the web, and baking for WYSIWYG printing. The plain text import and export features also work fairly well. Screenwriter has many other bells and whisles that most people will never use. As far as I know, it has no image import capability.

[Jeff Donald]

PDF export is built into OS X on Macs.

Jeff

[John Locke]

I bought the very first edition of Final Draft...way back when...and it has come a looooong way since then. So, if you take into acount the difference between the first FD edition and today and apply that same probable progression to AV, you can bet that AV will be a killer program before too long.

[Vinson Watson]

When you look at the two, MM2K and Final Draft, side by side, MM2K blows Final Draft away as far as functions and such. It's the one I plan to get.

-Vinson

[John Locke]

Vinson,

I just went to the Writer's Store and compared Movie Magic and Final Draft feature-per-feature and they appear almost identical. In what way does MM blow away FD in your opinion?

[Richard Alvarez]

Screenwriting software is a bit like nle software... you should understand what your end product is going to be... what you NEED now, and later.

Having said that, I bought the first version of Scriptware back in.... '93 I think. I've written all my scripts on it. Export via ASCII txt whenever I need to send it to someone as a text file. It will convert to dual collumn AV format, or STAGE format. Not sure what new bells and whistles are on the current version, but a decade has come and gone so I imagine it will do a lot. Works great for me. I've won awards, optioned two scripts, and written eight. (features, not counting shorts).

I don't think the new version has much in the way of importing graphic abilities, or budget breakdown. I do own an Avid ExpressDV system, and I can import the script right into the system. It will attach scene graphics and cutaways, and mark the dialogue... more power and abilities than I probably need, but nice to know it has them. Does FCP or VV offer script importing?

[Jeff Donald]

I believe only Avid allows you to import scripts. Final Drafts also saves in a special .txt extension to allow importing into Avids.

Jeff