Just wrote about 4 pages in my notebook - I always write by hand first, it saves revision time too - while watching the Packs/Falcs game

It's coming out a bit different then I thought but it's ok. Will sleep on it and dream/imagine the rest of it in my head.

Quoted from stevie Will sleep and dream/imagine my hand and getting head.

Might as well use my cheat as well, sine you already jumped in.



Hey, your 49'ers sure looked good today.  Very impressive...glad I've got big Vernon Davis,a dn my fantasy team, the PuppetFishes are now 4-1, in first place and # 1 in the Power Rankings and total points scored.  BTW, the 1 game we lost?  Yeah, by 1/2 a frickin' point!!!!!

I need to get going on my OWC, as tomorrow is my deadline, as I move out Tuesday on a ride I don't want to be taking.  My main characters are an Aussie couple named Stevie and Natasha Hendstrige.  Hopefully, the real Stevie can use this in his dreams.



On a serious note, I truly hope everyone is coming along well on this OWC challenge.

I'm 5-0 in my fantasy league!

Oh, and Natasha may use ME in her dreams...

Hey, cool coincidence... Macca got married again yesty - on John's birthday and at the same registry office where he married Linda.

At least Nancy won't steal his money like that one-legged maggot; she's as rich as him!!

I don't think anyone is as rich as Macca!!!

Hey, I'm trying to submit my finished OWC but there is no where to upload my script on the link to the enrollment? I seen a Logline but idk what that means.

Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

The upload is on the screen after the one you put the log line on.

Thanks Michael, got my OWC submitted.

Quoted from leitskev Zane, if you are going to screenwrite, you really will need a screen writing program. I did my first feature script last year on a word program, and it is not the way to go. I ended up buying software, but later found out there is free software called, I believe, Celtix, or something like that. You really want to download that and use that. It does the formatting for you, and of course you can adjust settings as desired.

Disagree. The vast majority of the 40 or so scripts I have posted on here were written in Word. I have a small number that were written in Final Draft, but chances are, you would not be able to tell the difference between those and the Word ones. Once you get a groove on in Word (and know your formatting rules like that back of your hand), it's very easy to use and far more flexible than any screenwriting program. Remember that the old school screenplays were written on a typewriter. And any font of Courier works fine as long as it looks like typeset.

I'm a big fan of Movie Magic Screenwriter myself, but the choice between that and Final Draft really simply come down to personal preference.

Word and OpenOffice can be excellent as well. Even if you don't have the formatting kung-fu down at George's level, there's plenty of templates for them as well. I used an OpenOffice template for years before I could gather the funds for MMS and you probably can't tell the difference. Most of them are really bad, of course. But there's some excellent ones out there.

For me, the main thing that a dedicated screenwriting program brings is the ease of use that can be a bit lacking with Word or OO, even with a cracking template.

I was not suggesting it can't be done that way. Just that you put yourself at a disadvantage. Let's compare the old typewriter days. Yeah, you can do it that way, but if you want to make an adjustment on one line of one page, it might require you to retype everything after it. So the idea of rewriting a script would be very different. Granted, I supposed this encourages a certain discipline, but my guess is this is far, far outweighed by the efficiency of using a computer. There were also probably times where a writer decided against certain changes simply because he didn't want to retype the whole script.

I think a similar effect occurs when comparing word software to screen software. When I wrote my first script in word, any time changes were made it usually resulted in needed adjustments in the rest of the script. Very time consuming in the end. Time better spent writing. Someone more proficient with word might know tricks that make these problems go away. Maybe that is the case with George. But if you don't know those tricks, it's easier to learn how to use the screen software,

A tale of fonts: my first scripts were all written in what the setting said was 'courier'. Several people told me it looked off, but it said courier, so I didn't change it. Until Gary sent me over 'courier Final Draft'. The difference is shocking. When it applied to the feature I had just finished, the page count went from about 97 to 76...just by changing the font!!

I definitely suggest new writers at least try out the screen software before they make up their minds. Most people find them incredibly useful on saving time.

I'm with George on this one.  Actually, I use a program a couple steps down from Word...  Microsoft Works Word Processor, baby!

And I wouldn't trade it for any screenwriting software I've tried before, and probably for any software yet to come.  I love it.  It's a lot more flexible than Celtx or the couple others I've tried.  Plus, I think it keeps me more more attune to the story, as I'm a lot more focused on not making errors.

I never have tried Final Draft, though, but I don't think I'm missing much.  Just don't have the money for it.  Well, I do, but I'd rather save it for something else when the system I'm using right now is working just fine for everything I need it to do.

I do have to transfer it over to Word to paginate it properly and convert it to .PDF, but that takes mere minutes.

Quoted from leitskev There were also probably times where a writer decided against certain changes simply because he didn't want to retype the whole script.

I never considered that, this is interesting because, generally speaking, most movie buffs would regard the majority of older films as better films.
Food for thought.

I have a question - disembodied voices (invisible ghost, whatever) V.O. or O.S.?

O.S. stands for off screen and depicts a character that exists in the scene, but is not on camera.

V.O. stands for voiceover and is used for characters who are not in the current scene, or for characters' thoughts.

In the case of ghosts speaking, they would most likely be present in the scene, but simply unseen, so I would suggest O.S.

Quoted from leitskev A tale of fonts: my first scripts were all written in what the setting said was 'courier'. Several people told me it looked off, but it said courier, so I didn't change it. Until Gary sent me over 'courier Final Draft'. The difference is shocking. When it applied to the feature I had just finished, the page count went from about 97 to 76...just by changing the font!!

Courier New is the best you can get in Word or most Word Processors. Courier is older and is missing a few characters. The difference between Courier New and Courier Final Draft is the line spacing. I discovered this when I had characters such as Ä, and it cut off the umlaut. That would also be why you came out with fewer pages once it was all done.

Darren, I am about the last person to be an authority on film. But I think it's worth keeping some things in mind. There was no shortage of bad films produced in the past. The great films stand the test of time, so they are well known to us. Also, the audiences were different. They did not have the short attention spans we have today. Now we have TV, video games, etc. Imagine the 1930s. There was no TV yet, just radio. What an experience it must have been to go to a movie and see things come to life on the big screen. This cannot be duplicated now. Even movies like the Godfather, from the early 70s, would not be successful today. But this is not the fault of modern screenwriters. It's just a changed world.

Shakespeare is the pinnacle of writing in the English language. But if the Bard were around today, I suspect he would be more than happy to have a typewriter, and even happier with a computer.

I seriously doubt older films were better because the writers were stuck using typewriters.

Some things in the world are hard to explain, too. For example, Abraham Lincoln wrote some of the most memorable prose of the language, and his speeches were true genius. And yet he had practically no education at all, and his parents were illiterate.

Mark, I use Works as well, for my documents, and did my first script on that. I figure it took me at least a couple of weeks longer to do just because of that. Every time I made changes on a page, I had to go back and fix everything that followed.

But, as long as the PDF comes out ok, to each his own.

The courier final draft is in my system now, so it can be used for any documents. I actually usually do my script notes in that font.