Up until this point in my career, I've had very little cause to use revision mode in my writing. Sure, I did revision mode a few times with my post-Apocalyptic spec so that my producers could follow my the edits I made. But I didn't really understand the scope of revisions mode, nor did I use them anywhere close to their fullest. I have since started.
As I mentioned a few weeks back, I recently made the switch from using Movie Magic to Final Draft, spurred on by the fact that both my writing partner and producer use Final Draft. More so, that software seems to have very clearly come out ahead as the industry standard for screenwriting. (I miss you, Movie Magic, but the transition to Final Draft has been a smooth one so far.) Granted, I also neglected to use Movie Magic to its fullest extent, but I'm really digging on Final Draft at the moment.
It took me a little while to get used to the shortcuts in FD compared to those in Movie Magic. Somethings are actually a little more intuitive to me in MM; for example, hitting Enter in MM prompts the next field in a slug line. Doing so in Final Draft drops me down to the action paragraph. For instance, when I used MM, I could intro my slug line (INT.) and hit enter. The software was designed to ask me which location I wanted to use. Writing in one and hitting Enter again would then prompt me to decide which time of day I was setting the scene in. I couldn't move beyond the slug line without either completing it, or telling the system to ignore that field and let me proceed. With FD, hitting enter will take me to the action paragraph, risking a blank or incomplete slug line. Rather, with the latter software, I have to hit Tab to call up the location and then time of day. Hitting Tab in MM would prompt dialogue.
Discrepancies in key commands aside, Final Draft has been pretty intuitive. In addition to, you know, actually writing the script, I've been making use of the above mentioned revision mode features. To be fair to Move Magic, since I didn't really use that feature when writing in that program, I can't compare how it worked. But for Final Draft, it's easy to assign another revision mode (the initial revisions are "Blue" in both name and appearance; the second set of revisions are Pink, and so on). Like with MM, and asterix denotes any line that was edited, added, or cut. Pages that only have one revision pass have "Blue' as their heading. Pages on which I edited the revisions are "Pink" at the top, and so on, making it easy to track what version of the script each page - and whole script - my team is reading.
Additionally, my writing partner and producer can easily read and mark up the Final Draft document I send them. Movie Magic has some weird settings, whereby it was difficult for me to even open a Movie Magic file I emailed myself. I would have to open the backup version in order to upload the script if I had been working remotely for some reason. WIth Final Draft, the files are universal (like Word documents), so anyone can open them and see all revision marks and script notes. (If you're paranoid about someone stealing your work, that might be a bad thing. But don't be worried. Just be careful who you send fdx files to and go with PDF when in doubt.) Speaking of, Script Notes are a way for my writing partner, for instance, to put his thoughts into the script without throwing off the formatting or page count. Script Notes enable him to tag a little note to any piece of text, which I can then click into to read. It can be anything he wants to make me aware of - "this dialogue doesn't make sense," "this is a typo," "you're brilliant and should win many Oscars."
Whether you're writing for yourself, a writers group, or more professionally, I encourage you to play around with your revision mode features and see what they can do for you. It beats the alternative (which, embarrassingly, I relied on even until quite recently) of simply saving each draft with a new name or version number and not having any fast way to track where the actual edits were made. Sure, you should still save each version as a new document, but it makes for comparing versions so much easier.
I guess it's not too encouraging that it only took me a decade of writing to really capitalize on these features, is it?
There are myriad screenwriting programs to choose from. The big industry leaders are Final Draft and Movie Magic Screenwriter. Of course, if you don't want to shell out a couple hundred bucks for writing software, there are various cheap or even free online alternatives. Celtx seems to be the biggest offering, though apparently Adobe has a program, as do Scripped (they claim it's free for members) and ScriptBuddy. I'm sure a quick Google search will turn up manifold others. (Full disclosure - I haven't used any of the web-based options, so I have no idea how well they work or how standard their formatting is.)
I use Movie Magic, because when I bought it a decade ago, I was told that there was no industry preference between that and Final Draft. Apparently, I was led astray.
After over a year working with my writing partner, W.A., on our sci-fi spec, we finally got it to our producer last week. She read it really quickly, and we scheduled (and had - see next installment) a call this past Monday about the script. In preparation for the conversation, though, she asked for the script in Final Draft. W.A. replied to her that, nope, Zach writes in Movie Magic, so no dice. As if that wasn't embarrassing, the same thing had happened when W.A. asked me for the script in Final Draft format. Both he and the producer like to make their notes directly in the script - this is quite common in the developmental stages of a screenplay. Hell, even I scribble all over the page when editing. Without the file in front of them, they would either have to write over a pdf, then scan and email it out, or write all their notes in a word document and then hope they sync up with the script.
Either way, the effort to markup a script is not ideal. And when something isn't technologically ideal, it's an inconvenience. Luckily for me, both W.A. and our producer are quite accommodating and understanding; W.A. even said, to paraphrase, "Don't worry about it, Final Draft just managed to pull ahead in the past few years." The rival programs are supposed to be able to convert screenplays from one format to the other, but the fact is that neither does. To convert a Movie Magic screenplay into a Final Draft one, you first need to save it as an rtf file, which both programs can do and can import. Then, as W.A. did last night, Final Draft can import it practically seamlessly.
Facility with the workaround solution aside, I can't ignore the fact that of the two industry professionals I'm working with on this project, neither is using Movie Magic, and both assumed I was on Final Draft. Ultimately, though we were able to convert the script to Final Draft easily, the software question left me a bit red faced and feeling more a rookie than I think I am at this point.
A word in Movie Magic's defense, though - I love the software. For ten years now, I've written screenplays (and a few plays) on it with little hassle or trouble. The version I have, 4.5.3 (they are now on 6), doesn't allow all title page features, for some reason, so I have a bare-bones formatting template to work with there. Otherwise, I really don't have any complaints about it, and using the program has become second nature to me. I haven't used Final Draft, so I'm not sure what the differences are, but I can't imagine they're too great in terms of general functionality or appearance. If you're weighing your options and looking to acquire some screenwriting software, know that I believe you will be quite happy with the user interface and functionality of Movie Magic Screenwriter, especially, I assume, the latest version. However, it's important to know that it seems the tug of war has crossed the line in Final Draft's favor, and that is nothing to overlook.
As I was leaving work on Friday, my phone rang. It was my manager, and he had Gretchen - the producer who optioned my post-Apocalyptic spec - waiting to conference in. With all three of us on the line, it was time to talk about the latest (and we hoped, final) draft I had turned in and what the plan for moving forward with my script is.
First, the great news was that they really liked all of the changes I have made and how effectively I have incorporated their notes. They reminded me that unproduced, young writers can best guarantee their careers by being easy to work with. Had I fought every note I've gotten from them, I'd be burying myself. Since I took their notes, threw in my own new ideas, fleshed the story out, and made the script much stronger, they said I have a much better chance of having a long career.
There's one final round of edits that Gretchen and I will be working on. There were some things that she wanted to cut, so she was going to use the weekend to really comb through the script. I should have those final edits soon. The difficulty, though, is that I write in Movie Magic 2000, while she uses Final Draft. Though the software claims to be compatible, I've found that it really isn't. She finally managed to get the script working in Final Draft after I converted the script to a rich text file. So, we'll see how re-converting goes.
Once the edits are all done, we're actually going to hold off on going to production companies or studios. Gretchen and (manager) Kevin have decided that trying to get an agent on board will make our case for the sale stronger. Their reasoning is that an agent at CAA, WME, or ICM will have other contacts at possibly bigger places and will also bring a level of name recognition that we might not yet have. Not to say that Kevin and Gretchen are unknown in the industry, but since they're working with an unknown writer, we have to do everything we can to make some things happen. If, however, we don't get any bites from agents by October 1st, we'll go forward on our own.
So, while there's more waiting ahead, I can handle it fine. There's been so much waiting to this point, that the next month shouldn't be too bad. Yes, we're waiting to hear back on some potentially big news, but I know I can't make those deadlines come any quicker. the best thing I can do going forward is to get another script in order that I can use it as a follow-up to this one. Roman army spec, here I come.
