Time, sand and the gaps between my fingers

Where to start... Hmm...

Well, some of you may have began to think that I had fallen off the face of the earth, and in some ways I guess I had, so I thought it best to write something just in case you'd figured that I'd given up, ran away to Alaska to live in a bus or turned into jam. (That's UK-jam, not US-jelly.)

Luckily, none of the above have yet to happen. Which is good. Jam wouldn't be at all welcome in my current trying-not-to-eat-sugar-apart-from-cheesecake way of life.

The truth is, a few months ago (well, actually it was back in April 2011 which is a loooong time ago by now - especially if you're reading this in 2016) I started on a slow but steady downward spiral of depression. Not "started" like it was on purpose, like consciously being on a diet or anything, but that it started happening to me (I guess that's a better way to describe it) and like a slow-motion bull in a china shop, there was no stopping it and a lot of glass had to break before it finally reared its head and exited.

I won't go into the ins and outs of what caused it all, (you can't be *that* interested) but suffice to say that after many, many months of treatment (both mentally and physically through rest, relaxation, diet and acupuncture) I am now free of the proverbial black dog and back on my feet cleaning up the glass.

So what?

Good question. Well, some of you may have already put two and two together and figured out that there have been no updates to Movie Draft since March, that the website wasn't released as planned, and I didn't make $500,000 by selling a script to Warner Bros... Or did I? Dun dun duuuuuuun. No, no I didn't. But it'd be a good rumour to spread all the same.

So?: Yes, I am still here. Yes, I am back in the saddle developing Movie Draft. Yes, the website is actually nearly finished. Yes, it will be released in the new year. Yes, you will then be able to download a new beta and contribute to Movie Draft's development. (Finally.) Yes, I did also lose my job during my depression and yes that was the best thing that could ever have happened to me and Movie Draft's development. (Although yes, at the time it stank like a skunk full of bees.)

I'm sorry if you felt that I let you down in any way, but I am now completely developing Movie Draft full-time with no other job / time constraints to worry about and it feels like I'm finally breathing again.

I can't wait to show you all what I've been working on, what ideas I've got planned and for you to be able to share you ideas for what *you'd* like planned for Movie Draft's development through the website's community and bug tracking tool.

As is always the case when you feel you're taking your first steps into unknown lands, these are exciting times indeed.

Thanks for sticking with me. I appreciate it.

Keep writing.

Mark.
www.moviedraft.com

Movie Draft vs Final Draft

I hope this doesn't come across as blunt or harsh, as it's not meant to, but I get some emails from people saying things like "Movie Draft doesn't have the X feature of Final Draft" or "Final Draft has Y feature and I absolutely MUST have that feature before I can use Movie Draft!" - and so on.

This puzzles me somewhat.

Firstly, Movie Draft is NOT Final Draft. Period. It may share the word "draft", and I may have also provided the ability for you to open and save Final Draft files, but that's as a courtesy only. After all, Movie Draft can also open Microsoft Word documents, but people don't write in saying that the pie-chart feature in MS Word is missing in Movie Draft. Strangely enough.

Secondly, Movie Draft is brand-new software. It's at v1.0 and has been out for a couple of months at the time of writing. Final Draft is at v8 at time of writing and has been out for 10+ years or so. I do have many ideas and features that I want to implement into Movie Draft - not necessarily ones that Final Draft has - but that takes time.

Lastly, if people are wanting Movie Draft to be like Final Draft, why not just buy Final Draft?

Ultimately, Movie Draft is not a "cheap" version of Final Draft. Movie Draft is non-linear screenwriting software in its own right and works in a completely different way to Final Draft - on purpose. If you don't "get it" or haven't yet seen the 15 minute introduction video on my website then please do as it goes through some of the differences and benefits between using Movie Draft over a conventional word processor in a visual way.

Keep writing.

Mark.
www.moviedraft.com

Movie Draft Development Update

Hi guys. Well, as you know I'm a one-man band at the moment and trying to get Movie Draft off the ground is proving to be a lot harder than I thought, time-wise.

There are so many great features and subtle improvements that I want / need to make - some fantastic suggestions from some of you too - but I also have a website to create, marketing to erm, market, screen casts to record and bills to pay, and there are only so many hours in the day.

So, in light of burning the candle at both ends I have thought long and hard and decided that my top priority for the time being needs to be:

Complete my website and stop coding

"WHAT?!" I hear you say. "We need those features - NOW!"

Well, whilst what I *really* want to do is just code Movie Draft and respond to the great feedback you have all provided, I think that for me to be able to respond productively and efficiently (and to take Movie Draft to the heights that I want to take it) I need to complete my website first. [This is something Frail has already commented on in some of my posts]

Why? Well it's simple. At the moment any updates I want to release to you, my customers, have to go through the Mac App Store review process. Typically this takes anything between a week to a month. This means that if I have a critical update available to Movie Draft - no matter how quickly I code it, we both have to play the waiting game for Apple to release the update on the Mac App Store and then (as more than likely I won't have your email address) I can't even contact you to tell you that the update is even available. Sure, I'll post it on Twitter but there's only a small percentage of users that follow me on Twitter so not everyone will be aware of that update.

On the other hand, when the website's finished I'll be able to release updates immediately and I'd even be able to provide "nightly builds" for those interested in getting beta releases. Additionally I will also be able to email you (if you choose that) when updates become available, so the whole process would run far smoother.

Finally, if you're using a Mac that is running an older OS X than 10.6.6, (you need 10.6.6 or above to use the Mac App Store) you'll be able to download a version of Movie Draft that will work on your older machine. In fact, you'll be able to download a version that will run on 10.4.11(!), so it means more people can use Movie Draft, and that can only be a good thing.

But what if I bought from the Mac App Store? Can I download from the website too, or do I have to wait until it's on the Mac App Store?

It won't matter whether you purchased from the Mac App Store or from the yet-to-be-finished website, you'll still be able to download the latest build from the website and be notified of any new releases. That's the key thing here. For example, if you found a bug which caused Movie Draft to crash when you typed "CRASH! DO IT, DO IT NOW!" I could potentially have a fix verified, out and available to download the same day.

So if that's ok with everyone I'll put coding of Movie Draft on hold for a couple of weeks whilst I turn my hand to the website, and thus creating a more efficient way of providing you, the end user, with a better product.

Drop me a note on here if you think I'm heading in the right direction with this and as always, thank you for your continued support.

You stay classy, San Diego.

Mark.
www.moviedraft.com

The Mac App Store - Review Problems

If you own Movie Draft SE and you like it, please read this...

Well, it's been a few weeks now since I released Movie Draft SE on the Mac App Store and I've had two blatant low-rating competitor reviews. These are manufactured reviews put there by competitors to try and tarnish Movie Draft SE's rating and credibility.

How do I know that they're competitor reviews? Simple:

1. They never contacted me for support.
2. They make false allegations about Movie Draft SE. None of which is true.
3. There's a free demo of Movie Draft SE available from my website for the user to try out before purchasing.

For the last "review" on the US Mac App Store (you'd have to click on the flag at the bottom of the screen to change countries), the user "Goldentype" accused Movie Draft SE for converting all of his/her Final Draft files into Movie Draft SE files. Movie Draft SE does no such thing, and anyone who has ever used Movie Draft SE will know this.

The trouble is, Movie Draft SE is brand-new software and I'm trying my hardest to make a living from it and any negative manufactured reviews can do nothing but damage my business, which in turn means I'll have less sales, which in turn means I'll have less money to support myself with, which in turn means that eventually I'd have to give up Movie Draft development and find a job and eat from the streets. Ok, maybe not, but you get the picture...

I certainly don't want that to happen as I want to make Movie Draft the best possible tool out there for writing screenplays, but I'm not Apple or any other large company that can take competitor reviews on the chin. I just don't have that following yet.

Sigh...

But you can help!

If you have bought Movie Draft SE - and you really like it - then would you be so kind as to leave a fair and favourable written review? I know that's probably a lot to ask of your time but as there is NO WAY of contacting customers on the Mac App Store, or even to respond to a review, the only thing that will help at this time is if more people leave honest, positive reviews to counter the manufactured ones.

You never know, it may just work.

Thanks in advance for your help, guys. I appreciate it.

Mark.
www.moviedraft.com

Goodbye SceneWriter, hello Movie Draft...

Many moons ago, I wrote a simple but effective PC-only program for writing screenplays called SceneWriter Pro. At its heart was the notion that it would be far better to write a screenplay on a scene-by-scene basis as opposed to a page-by-page basis. This was the beginnings of things for me and became an obsession to create the perfect screenwriting application from its inception.

Unfortunately, I took SceneWriter Pro as far as I could take it because of the way I had written it. I had to start again from scratch if I wanted to implement all the ideas I had floating around in my head to make the software even better, and Movie Draft was born.

So why the name change?

Well, SceneWriter Pro doesn't sell a lot of copies. It was never anything that was going to earn me a living, but for all of its failings it does have a lot of die-hard followers, so I decided to keep SceneWriter Pro available for download for my existing users for the time being and strike out with a new name and a new start with Movie Draft, and this time I'd try and earn a living from it. (There were other possible names, but Movie Draft just kinda sounded right)

But Movie Draft is Mac-only, and SceneWriter Pro is PC-only...

Ah yes, that's very true. I guess you'll have to watch this space... ;-) But in the meantime, if you need a PC-version you can buy SceneWriter Pro and upgrade to Movie Draft when (hush, hush) the Windows version is released.

Movie Draft can open SceneWriter Pro documents so you won't lose any work.

Here's to a new era, a new beginning, and a new name. Movie Draft.

Mark.
www.moviedraft.com

Dean, Gene and the magic machine. (Or being careful with character names)

So you've spent two weeks creating the structure and outline of your screenplay. You're happy with how the story flows from a high-level point of view and you're ready to start fleshing out your scenes.

Great!

Before you begin, you spend some time thinking of character names. It's a detective story so you feel that something like "Dean" is a good name. Yes, "Dean McCormick", great. Sorted. You then start thinking of your antagonist's name and for whatever reason "Gene Davis" pops into your head and it sticks.

Yeah!

Good guy: Dean McCormick

Bad guy: Gene Davis

As a whole name, and as read, they read completely different, but whilst Dean and Gene look sufficiently different in your screenplay, on screen they'll be very hard to distinguish in dialogue. It doesn't take a great leap of imagination to work out that if another character is referencing Dean or Gene in their dialogue, it could be confusing for the viewer.

However, after saying that... You may actually WANT this to happen as a device in your screenplay - to cause the very confusion it could cause, but be careful of this device. If done incorrectly it could just end up falling flat on its face.

Admittedly, there aren't many names that rhyme that look different but I have seen it done in spec screenplays online (Dean and Gene in fact) and by that time the writer has grown quite attached to his or her character names and finds it hard to change them.

So, as a rule of thumb avoid that trap by saying your character names out loud before you commit to naming your darlings.

Mark Spark.
www.moviedraft.com

To bold or not to bold, that is the emphatic question

With the advent of the modern word processor to replace the beloved chattery typewriter, pretty much anything is possible on a page. Images, colors, hyperlinks, different font sizes etc. You name it and more than likely it can be placed, formatted and printed.

Obviously, none of the above belong anywhere near a screenplay, (and if you're using any font other than a member of the Courier family then give yourself a good slap in the face) but on a far simpler scale, one of the age-old screenwriting debates is whether or not to use bold, italic or underline in your script, and I'm going to tell you why you shouldn't.

If you're new to screenwriting then you've more than likely started your script in Microsoft Word. Nearly everyone has Word installed and so it will come as no surprise that it's the most popular tool in the world for writing screenplays. Not the best by a long shot, but the most popular none the less.

As an established user of Word (or equivalent) you will be familiar with applying bold, italic and underline lavishly throughout the pages of things you write about without any consideration. You may then assume that you can do the same thing in a screenplay and no one will bat an eye lid, but you'd be wrong.

Emphasis is usually found in the Action element of a screenplay and goes something like this:

EXT. THE PARK - CONTINUOUS

Josh trips on a stone and falls to the ground with a splat! Right into a pile of doggy doo.

Now, remembering that this is a screenplay, how long would the above lines actually take on screen? Well, according to Movie Draft SE's SceneTime™, it's 5 seconds. That's a pretty short scene. We've emphasised the result of what happened to Josh tripping over the stone but not described it.

So here's a rule: Describe, not emphasise.

Let's rewrite the above without the use of emphasis and instead with the use of words describing what you would see on screen, or in real life if you actually did see Josh trip over that stone. Remember that the time it takes for Josh to fall must relay into screen time - you can even extend the actual time it would take for him to fall by this equation:

Gravity + Artistic Licence = Takes A Long time To Fall

EXT. THE PARK - CONTINUOUS

Josh trips on a stone.

IN SLOW MOTION

His arms reach out like a poor excuse for superman. The bottom of his long, thick-looking coat flutters upwards like a matching cape.

Josh sees that in front of him on the floor - where his face will eventually be - is a great big pile of doggy doo. It looks fresh.

His eyes widen. He inhales quickly. His mouth opens. He looks like he's about to say something. His face scrunches up as he lifts his hands up towards his face.

JOSH

Shhhhhhiiii...

The ground is close. Josh closes his eyes and turns his head.

NORMAL SPEED

Josh hits the ground, his head seemingly cushioned by the freshly left dog present.

He sighs.

He takes a long deep breath.

JOSH

...t.

All of a sudden, our 5 second emphasised scene is now 38 seconds when written as you'd see it on screen, and not a single bold, italic or underline to be seen anywhere.

Describe, not emphasise.

The other big no-no is emphasising dialog. When you emphasis dialog, what you're basically doing is putting in the pauses and beats of how you yourself hear them. For example:

JOSH

What does she want this time?

is different to:

JOSH

What does she want this time?

...and you may think that's ok to do. Most people would say it is, but you're not the actor and the actor has been paid a generous amount of money to get into the "head" of your character, to think like they think, react how they react, and most importantly of all, to talk how they talk.

Let the actor decide how to say their lines. If needed, as above, describe, not emphasise:

Josh sees Lauren through the window. His shoulders fall as he shakes his head gently from side to side.

JOSH

What does she want this time?

That way the mood is conveyed visually - as you would see it on screen, so once again: Describe, not emphasise.

Now, where was I? Oh yes, boldly going...

Mark
www.moviedraft.com