Screenwriting Software

[Zenji]

There's a guy at work that I've been chatting without about movie scripts, (the ones he's written) but he doesn't have any good software to format them correctly to.

He wants me to find him a good cheap copy of Movie Magic Screenwriter but I'm not sure if it's exactly up his alley. Most Screenwriting software I've seen looks complicated anough as it is (probably my excuse why I've never converted any of my dozen movies to script form).

Does anyone know of or use any good screenwriting software that I can show him?

[n0Mad]

Final Draft. No question about it. It's easy to use only needing the Tab and Enter key for formatting and its intuitive system already predicts what you're going to do next based upon what came before. Plus it has smart type for many elements speeding up the process. Tech support is excellent though you rarely ever need them. It has text to speech, index card view, collabowriter, online script registry, revision mode, and many other tools that it's no wonder this program has become the industry leader. Plus, you can export the script to HTML, PDF, or even the Movie Magic format so you can plug your script into the Movie Magic scheduling software later if needed.

There are some really cheap formatting programs out there but they're mostly just templates you plug into MS Word. Final Draft is $230 so seems pricey compared to the el cheapo templates but compared to most other software packages, even basic word processors (which FD also includes), the price is extremely reasonable. It really is worth the investment. www.finaldraft.com