This script-crafting app doesn’t rewrite the genre, but still delivers a blockbuster.
If you’re anything like me, in your spare time you’re writing your spec script for a project Jessica Alba will simply flip for (its about a dancer who becomes a better dancer). While apps like Awesome Note or PlainText are great for cribbing and sorting character bios on the go, when you’re used to hammering out dialogue in Final Draft you find typical document-writing apps only slow the flow of your creative juices. The revolutionary idea behind Final Draft is that it does all the annoying formatting on your behalf, so you can focus on dealing with the plot holes in your second act. The brilliance of Screenwriting is that it essentially does the same thing. While it may not be exactly like toting around $300 worth of script-crafting software on your iPad, Screenwriting is an inexpensive alternative to doing all that laborious formatting yourself. And it’s a breeze to use.
Starting a new script about cops who hunt vampires in their spare time? Awesome. From the home page, click ‘add project,’ enter in the title (Stake Out, natch), your contact info, even your WGA number, and Screenwriter designs your cover page before you can write ‘Fade In.’ The next step is adding a bank of characters and descriptions (Bruce: 35, single, no nonsense, hates vampires, loves Sangria), which you can edit at any time (loves Bourbon) and from which you’ll draw names while writing dialogue so you won’t have to type ‘Carlito’ 43 times in your first scene.
The other aspects of the app are pretty intuitive. There’s a basic ‘change style’ functionality that allows you to change the formatting on your lines with a few taps of the finger. This is something the app developers should have taken advantage of in the sample script they included, Mirror Self Image, as in the first scene there are some embarrassing/unintentionally hilarious formatting mistakes (ex: Katie: When will Sarah be back? Helen picks up her utensil and continues to eat. She dodges Katie’s stare.) A mistake like that is easily fixed in your own script, but one would think the signature script being sold with the App as an example of what the App itself is capable of would be edited and presented without any flaws.
Screenwriting has other not unique, but still absolutely essential features. Story View allows you to see your entire script as one unit, but you can also divide the script by scene, to tackle it piece by piece. There is also a note-taking feature, which allows you to add comments to your own work (“this scene could use another scantily-clad vampire queen”), or leave notes on someone else’s (“twelve vampire queens is eleven too many”). When you’ve finished your masterpiece, you can email it to a fellow collaborator as a Final Draft file or to your agent as an HTML-based body email. You can also upload scripts you’ve been working on at home through a browser-based service you access using that internet thing.
All in all, Screenwriting is a powerful tool for the on-the-go script maker. While it doesn’t reinvent the screenwriting wheel, it does the things it should do well, and represents a best-case scenario for the scriptwriter using an iPad. There are currently only a few options out there in the App store, and the fact that Screenwriting only costs $2.99 should at least put it on the radar for the budget conscious would-be Woody Allen.
App Store: $2.99
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Great article- and a handy app, to boot. Looking forward to grabbing a copy, and while sitting around in the airport, tooling thru some by-the-minute inspiration turned into script work. Yeah! Finally, leaving the laptop at home.
I like it.