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Screenwriting Software: Closeup Review #6 |
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Scriptwriters have more software choices than they've ever had before. The market for standalone scriptwriting programs first heated up with the arrival of the Windows versions of Scriptware and ScriptThing. Screenplay Systems soon entered the fray with Movie Magic Screenwriter -- a slightly modified and customized version of ScriptThing for Windows.
Competition will get hotter if all the companies making PC-only products carry out their intention of releasing Mac versions. Similarities between MacOS and Windows 95 have made it easier than ever for programmers to develop programs that work on either platform. The first product to cross over that barrier was Final Draft, a MAC program that's now available for Windows, and is reviewed here. Most recently, Movie Master, the first PC-based standalone interactive scriptwriting program, has at long last been ported from DOS to a Windows version, and is also reviewed here.
Meanwhile, Microsoft's release of Office 97, with a new version of Word (8.0), is forcing developers to upgrade commercial scriptwriting template packages like Script Werx and ScriptWright (both reviewed here). They still have some advantages over homegrown macro packages, which are growing in popularity within the writing community. Meanwhile, some users are urging Corel to include scriptwriting features in a future release of WordPerfect.
Why is there so much interest in what has historically been a small niche market? Perhaps the answer can be found in a recent survey of high school students, nearly half of whom said they'd like to pursue a career in film and television. Or perhaps that mid-century dream of "Writing the Great American Novel" has been replaced by a new one: "Writing the Great American Screenplay." No matter what the reason, all writers benefit from the increased software options. For this review, I tested two standalone programs (Movie Master and Final Draft); and two add-on products for Microsoft Word (ScriptWright and Script Werx).
Hollywood Cinema Software's Movie Master for Windows ($299; $129 Freelance version) is the first Windows version of this venerable DOS program. It uses a key disk copy protection scheme with limited installs. There are two versions available. The less expensive version is designed to generate only submission scripts, also known as "author's draft" or "spec" scripts. The production version has all the features needed for revisions and shooting scripts.
Nowadays, installing most software is so simple that it's not worth mentioning. However, for the first time in a long time, I had to contact technical support because Movie Master did not install properly. The program requires a data library file that is used in Windows 3.11 but not in Windows 95. This file was inadvertently excluded from the distribution diskettes. The program worked after technical support sent me the required file. Hopefully, that oversight will have been corrected by the time you read this.
Comprehensive Video, the predecessor to Hollywood Cinema software, developed Movie Master for DOS -- the first commercial standalone scriptwriting program -- in the late eighties. It was a revolutionary product because it was fully dedicated to screenwriting and nothing else. It had a "text" mode which Comprehensive briefly tried vainly to suggest as an alternative to a regular word processor, but the real appeal was that it turned a PC into a screenwriting machine.
In keeping with the software and keyboard design of that era, function keys handled much of the work. The Enter key was used to good effect to cut down the total keystrokes required. And all the while, the computer maintained proper margins in real time, on-the-fly, for a true WYSIWYG screenwriting experience. Despite a few clunky features, Movie Master became very popular, and quickly set the standard for quality scriptwriting software.
Before long, however, other standalone screenwriting programs came along that were not so dependent on function keys. Movie Master started losing market share, and then plummeted in relative popularity when those other vendors created Windows versions, while Movie Master remained purely a DOS product. Clearly, Movie Master needed to move to Windows, too. However, the breakup of Comprehensive Video temporarily delayed any action.
When it emerged as the new owner of Movie Master, Hollywood Cinema clearly focused mostly on easing the transition to Windows for its remaining DOS users. Taking this approach locked Movie Master into its original design, rather than focusing on the primary objective of any formatting program: making scriptwriting as intuitive as possible. As a result, they have succeeded in making Movie Master for Windows function much like Movie Master for DOS, instead of taking a fresh approach.
Up to a point, writing a script with Movie Master is intuitive. When you're in a slugline, pressing Enter drops you down to an action line. Press Enter in an action line, and you're ready to type a character name. Hit Enter at the character name and you'll move to dialogue. Hit Enter again, and the program puts you in a new character name element. Most of the time, this process is quite adequate. But if (for example) you want to break up an action paragraph with a blank line, you're forced to use a function key or some other control-key combination, which breaks up the flow of work somewhat.
Other programs use the Tab key somewhat like the Enter key works in Movie Master, to switch from one element to another. The intent in both cases is for a single key to select the most likely "next action" based on the current cursor position. However, in Movie Master, one ends up relying somewhat more on function keys or other key combinations. A guide at the bottom of the screen shows the purpose of each function key, and pressing the shift key reveals what each function key does when shifted. Still, in putting those labels in a bar at the bottom of the screen, the developers overlooked a great opportunity to use the Windows interface; none of those labels is "clickable" with the mouse, nor do they provide "fly-over" help. They just take up screen space. This is another unimaginative holdover from the old DOS screen layout.
Movie Master includes production and submission screenplay formats, two sitcom formats, and a stage play format. You have full control over all the margins and settings for each element. There are breakdown reports, a somewhat primitive index card view, and revision features. The manual is well written. There's a good online help system. On the surface, it has everything you want in a scriptwriting program.
Yet, in practical use it has many shortcomings. Some are design issues that may be matters of personal taste, like the reliance on function keys, or the cluttered screen. The delete key only deletes the letters in words; you have to use control delete to remove elements. Other features are odd or buggy. For example, the ruler doesn't extend across the entire screen. A toolbar I turned off would mysteriously reappear after typing dialogue. Luckily, none of these really interferes with writing, or causes disasters.
But there are more troubling issues. In the index card view, Movie Master lets you type text into a card -- but doesn't save what you've typed. You can't convert elements, such as an action headline into a slugline, without running a separate routine to change the elements. The import features are a major problem. Every time I attempted to import an ASCII text file the program locked up and crashed. The Rich Text File import did not work; it turned everything into a character name element. I tried using the Windows cut-and-paste feature, to import a script from ScriptThing, but Movie Master converted action elements into dialogue, character names into transitions, and transitions into slug lines. When I attempted the same procedure using a WordPerfect file, Movie Master turned the text into garbage. The Scriptware Tagged File import worked only intermittently.
There seems to be no error checking to insure that the script is formatted properly before you save or print a file. For example: if you mistakenly write two consecutive speeches by the same character, with no other element between them, other programs will alert you, or simply combine the speeches to fix your error. Movie Master simply leaves them as you wrote them, and will print them that way.
By far the most serious problem occurred when I tried to convert an action element into a slugline, to fix a file import problem. Movie Master simply deleted the line, without any warning. To compound the error, the undo command would not retrieve the missing text. It was gone for good. I did something wrong, but that's what error-trapping is for. No program should allow the user to lose information that way. The first rule of software design is always: Prevent the Loss of the User's Data. Many users might never run into this particular bug -- but it shouldn't have been there, regardless.
To summarize: Movie Master for Windows is designed primarily for fans of Movie Master for DOS. If you fall into that category, you may love the Windows version. Still, my suggestion would be to stick with the more stable DOS version, if Movie Master's functional design appeals to you. The only real use of the Windows GUI is the index card feature, and it is not well-implemented. A screenplay is just a text document, and Windows is hardly necessary for formatting scripts. Until the program makes better use of the Windows environment, and is fully debugged, it does not compete very well with other programs in its market.
BC Software's Final Draft ($299) is the first cross platform (runs on MAC or Windows) standalone scriptwriting program on the market. Final Draft is the premiere choice for MAC users. How does Final Draft stack up against the leading Windows programs?
Final Draft is the first program in this category to have Win 95/NT certification from Microsoft. The advantage of this certification is questionable given Final Draft's handling of cut and paste importing. (more about this below). Like many other scriptwriting programs, Final Draft uses a key disk copy protection scheme with limited installs.
The look and feel of Final Draft is uncluttered. The Enter and Tab keys handle most of the formatting chores. Changing one element into another is very easy to do. Place the cursor anywhere on the line you wish to change and click on the element toolbar. There are also function key or keyboard shortcuts for most operations. Final Draft comes with an excellent manual and online help system. A help wizard is activated whenever you use a feature for the first time; this feature can be turned off if you wish.
In keeping with Final Draft's sparse look, script notes are attached as a flag in your script. There are three priority levels of notes (labeled from 1 to 3). When you display a note, it appears in a separate window. Final Draft cannot print script notes within a script; it prints them on a separate sheet, keyed to slugline and page number. The breakdown reporting feature is very weak. There's only one report, a simple list that indicates the page count of each scene in the script. The report must be printed; there's no preview.
Final Draft arrives with three formats for writing a screenplay, sitcom, or stage play. BC Software calls these templates "element files." You have full control over the formatting in these element files. It's relatively easy to create the two standard sitcom formats from the single template that's provided. BC Software also sells an add-on product for $50 that has an element file for every television show currently on the air. Each file contains all the margin settings and character names for that show. If you're planning to write a spec script for a television show, this is a worthwhile addition. It saves you the trouble of finding out what the specific format requirements are for "Seinfeld" or "ER".
Final Draft can import files saved in ASCII or Rich Text Format (RTF). Final Draft's complete compliance with Win95 should make it possible to copy text from another Windows program, paste it into Final Draft, and retain the formatting. Unfortunately when you cut and paste text into Final Draft, it converts everything into uppercase and labels it as an Element "7" instead of action or dialogue elements. Final Draft faired a bit better importing an RTF file; it didn't convert the text into uppercase. In any event, you must go through the script and convert each line into the proper element, a tedious process. Final Draft will export files to ASCII, RTF or Movie Magic Scheduling.
Final Draft has very good outlining and index card features, which could be exceptional, should BC Software decide to incorporate all the features of its MAC standalone outliner, Three by Five, into this program. The outline view displays all the sluglines and the first line of action that appears underneath each slugline. You can move scenes by dragging them to a new position with the mouse. Everything in a scene (action, dialogue, etc.) shows up in the index card view. You can change the number of index cards displayed on screen from one to nine across. The program makes the cards progressively smaller so anything above four or five across is pointless unless you're using a large monitor at very high resolutions. The cards can be rearranged by dragging them to a new position with the mouse.
To add a scene you must press a function key. This brings up an edit screen with space for a slugline and action description. You can choose to place this new scene after the current scene or at the end of the script. Clicking on an index card should, ideally, bring up the edit screen, instead it does nothing. Double click and you're back in the standard page layout view.
Final Draft is definitely an up-and-comer. It's easy to use and the program was bug-free. New features are being added to compete with ScriptThing and Scriptware. Upgrades are free and can be downloaded from the company's website. Final Draft is the only product worth considering for MAC users and a good choice for Windows users. The feature set doesn't match ScriptThing's or Scriptware's yet, though Final Draft does implement some Windows features more successfully than ScriptWare, as of this writing.
At the moment, it's the only product with cross-platform compatibility -- the ability to take a file created with the MAC version and use it with the PC version of the program or vice versa. Other companies are talking about releasing MAC versions of their products shortly but action speaks louder than words. If you need this compatibility, Final Draft should be at the top of your shopping list.
Parnassus Software's Script Werx ($99 MAC or Windows) is a series of eleven add-on templates for Microsoft Word 6.0 and above. This product was designed by John Morley and includes features that corporate writers and producers will appreciate. Morley is the author of Scriptwriting for High-Impact Video. The writing tips included with some of the templates are excerpts from the book.
An installation program copies the templates to the appropriate Microsoft Word or Office Template directory. Script Werx includes feature film, live TV, 3-camera, 2 column, 4 column, a combination format for corporate video, storyboard, treatment, research question, and on-camera interview question templates. Each template has its own set of tool bar buttons and commands that appear under a Script Werx tab on the Word menu. There is a manual but no online help.
The Enter key handles most of the formatting chores. Pressing Shift-Tab cycles through all the elements (action, dialogue, slugline, etc.) of a script. The tool bar has a button to insert all the elements except for standard dialogue. The keyboard shortcuts left a lot to be desired because all of them require two hands to execute. Script Werx can do side by side dialogue in its screenplay format. However the margins, which can be changed, were incorrect. Scene numbering and the revision capabilities most people need to generate production scripts are present.
Script Werx is a valuable addition for Microsoft Word, especially for anyone working in corporate production. This program will automatically generate copy for prompter, shot lists, and create a storyboard version of your script. Script Werx can export to the Executive Producer logging program, so you can use your script as the basis for your production logs. This feature wasn't quite ready for the Windows version so it will be included in a maintenance upgrade.
Indelible Ink's ScriptWright ($99 Mac or Windows, $40 for students) is another add-on for Microsoft Word 6.0 and higher. This set of macros and templates was created by Guy Gallo, a professional screenwriter whose credits include "Under the Volcano", and Columbia University professor. The installation program creates a subdirectory in Word's template directory and copies a single template file into it.
ScriptWright's menu commands and help files are automatically placed into Word when you open the ScriptWright template. You can select from among three different arrangements for ScriptWright's menu commands. The clean menu setting clears out any Word functions irrelevant to writing scripts and distributes ScriptWright commands on the appropriate menu selections. The combined menu option adds all of ScriptWright's commands without removing any Word commands. The segregated approach puts all the ScriptWright commands on one menu. There are three toolbars -- for styles, revisions, and major features -- which can be turned on or off.
Enter and Tab are the primary formatting tools. ScriptWright adds a twist to the functioning of the Enter key, going beyond the norm, with what it calls Smart Enter. To use Smart Enter, you define an abbreviation in a list box first. For example, define "C" as a substitute for the name Catherine. Then whenever you type "C" and press Enter, C will be replaced with "Catherine". Typing a period on a blank line and pressing Enter will bring up the list. Select an abbreviation from your list to insert a name, location, or anything else you'd care to define. In Final Draft or Movie Master, when you type the first letter in the character name element, a list of character names appears. ScriptWright can't match that level of automation but it's nearly as smooth.
Pressing the Tab key, also labeled Smart, changes one element to another, e.g., from action to character to dialogue. You can also use the tool bar buttons, menus or shortcut keys to perform these functions. ScriptWright, in contrast to Script Werx, uses the Alt key and a single letter (A for Action, D for Dialogue, etc.) as keyboard shortcuts. These shortcuts are easy to remember and typing is faster because your fingers remain on the keyboard. ScriptWright has the best shortcuts of any scriptwriting add-on I've tested.
ScriptWright also matches the standalone programs when it comes to cheating. Writers cheat (expand) the margins to reduce the page count of a script and hence, shorten the running time of the proposed film. Producers in Hollywood get very nervous whenever they see a script more than 110 pages in length. I like the option because I can eliminate short pages and control exactly what appears on each page. ScriptWright can cheat one element, a group of elements, or the entire script.
This program has limitations. It handles one style of script and produces minimal reports. ScriptWright is designed to produce feature film submission or production scripts and it does very well. It has all the revision and scene numbering capabilities needed for production scripts. There are only three reports. A scene breakdown lists each scene and its length in page count. The structure report is a list of outline headings and the character report indicates the amount of screen time each character has in the script.
The format command is one of Script Wright's strong points. This command runs an error check to insure that the script is properly formatted. ScriptWright looks for blank elements, extraneous carriage returns, orphaned continueds or anything that doesn't belong and deletes it so you can print a clean script.
Another strength of Script Wright is its outline feature. You can create two outline levels above the scene headings (sluglines) in your script. Gallo suggests using these levels, which don't print, to create Act and Sequence groupings. It's a useful way of examining the structure and organizing the scenes (sluglines) in a script. There is no index card view but all of the information under the scene heading can be displayed in the outline view.
ScriptWright is a bargain for Microsoft Word users who want to write feature film scripts. This program's well-thought-out approach to script formatting makes the writer's job painless. ScriptWright is no match for Script Werx's versatility, but it does a great job of handling the feature film screenplay format.
Robert M. Goodman is a professional writer and director with extensive production credits in film, television, and non-broadcast video. He is the owner and principal of Goodman Associates, Inc., a full-service production firm in Philadelphia.
