Is it possible to make a good film without a good story? The answer is probably "not"! The story is clearly the main piece of the filmmaking puzzle. The screenplay is the written work that is made especially for that. The standard format of a screenplay is well defined.
There are several differences between for instance the french format and US format, but in my opinion, it doesn't matter. Both are nice... The most important criteria for me is if there is a good software to write and format the script... Formatting the screenplay with the default settings of the software is good enough. Don't waste your time with that. The only reason why I keep the US format is that it is well defined in my software.
Screenwriters often use softwares like Word or Open office to write their stories. Why not if you want to waste your time to format the final draft... Hopefully, you can also use dedicated softwares for screenwriting. My point against the formatting addicts is that you have a better choice if you are not really strict.
One of those software is free, it is called Celtx and it is perfect for what you really need to do when you write a screenplay.. Celtx is more than a screenwriting software. It is a fully functional media pre-production system. It replaces paper & binder pre-production with a digital approach that's more complete, simpler to work with, and easier to share.
There are several differences between for instance the french format and US format, but in my opinion, it doesn't matter. Both are nice... The most important criteria for me is if there is a good software to write and format the script... Formatting the screenplay with the default settings of the software is good enough. Don't waste your time with that. The only reason why I keep the US format is that it is well defined in my software.
Screenwriters often use softwares like Word or Open office to write their stories. Why not if you want to waste your time to format the final draft... Hopefully, you can also use dedicated softwares for screenwriting. My point against the formatting addicts is that you have a better choice if you are not really strict.
One of those software is free, it is called Celtx and it is perfect for what you really need to do when you write a screenplay.. Celtx is more than a screenwriting software. It is a fully functional media pre-production system. It replaces paper & binder pre-production with a digital approach that's more complete, simpler to work with, and easier to share.
And "cerise sur le gateau", Celtx is open source... It is licensed under the CePL license.
Hi Everyone!!
ReplyDeleteI know this is an article about Celtx but I work at Scripped.com and they just released a celtx version that lets you sync your Celtx scripts with Scripped.com, so you can write Online and offline. You can download it from sourceforge here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/scripped/files/ or by searching there for Scripped.
Check it out, it's free! It's same as celtx but also works with Scripped which is really convenient!!
~Jenny
Outreach Director
jenny@scripped.com
Thanks a lot for your feedback, it seems to be really interesting.
ReplyDeleteI'll have a look very quickly. The Screen Writer software is totally free for a small project and I think that you need to purchase the PRO version if you want to write a screenplay for a feature film, but the price of Scripped Pro is reasonable and everything seems to be well done... Am I right? Concerning the Scripped Vault feature (http://scripped.com/features) which is very nice, as a french guy, I have to add for french people that you'll probably also have to protect your intellectual property in france (s'envoyer un simple pli-recommandé peut suffir à prouver l'antériorité dans un premier temps)
Cheers,
Jonathan