John August

Highland

Pretty much everything is on sale

Apps, Bronson, Highland, Weekend Read, Writer Emergency, Writer Emergency Pack

Every fall, we put many of the products we make on sale. Typically, it lines up with Back to School or Labor Day, but the notions of “time” and “seasons” and “school” don’t seem to match the actual experience of 2020.

Still: bargains!

Through Sunday, September 13th all of the following are half off —

The upgrade to Highland 2 Pro, now just $25 USD.1

The upgrade to Weekend Read is $5.

Bronson Watermarker PDF is just $10.

Writer Emergency Pack is $10 on Amazon and in our store.

We’re also clearing out the remaining stock of our game One Hit Kill from our Pennsylvania warehouse. It’s a great card game for just ONE DOLLAR plus shipping.

  1. Both Highland 2 and Weekend Read are free to download. The upgrade is an in-app purchase, with prices varying a little bit internationally. ↩

Highland 2 Student Edition

Apps, Highland

We offer a free full version of Highland 2 for students enrolled in university writing programs, including film schools. Over the past few months, we’ve signed up programs at the Ivy Leagues, big state schools and tiny London colleges.

Here’s how the process works:

  1. The writing professor or instructor emails us at brand@johnaugust.com.
  2. We send back instructions for signing up their students. Important: We can only sign up students with their official school email addresses (such as .edu).
  3. Once they’re in our system, we send each student an email confirmation.
  4. Confirmed students use their school email address to unlock Highland 2.

The student edition of Highland 2 is time-limited to the duration of studies. After that, it reverts to Highland 2 Basic, which has most of the same features but includes a watermark when printing or exporting to PDF.

If you’re an instructor who wants your students to have access to Highland 2, send us an email to brand@johnaugust.com. If you’re a student in a university writing program who wants to use Highland 2, send your instructor a link to this post.

Other Things Screenwriters Write

Episode - 437

Go to Archive

Follow Up, Highland, News, QandA, Scriptnotes, Transcribed, Treatments

John and Craig discuss the other stuff screenwriters write, from beat sheets to scriptments and everything in between. The differences are sometimes subtle, but each can have value — in the right circumstance.

After that, they dip into the mailbag (24:23) for questions on TV bibles, writing while traveling, and using “I” in titles.

Premium subscribers: stick around for a bonus segment (47:31) on the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator and how its questions may be useful to screenwriters.

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.

UPDATE 2-21-2020 The transcript for this episode can be found here.

Hiring a coder

Apps, Bronson, Geek Alert, Highland, Los Angeles, Weekend Read

We’re bringing in a new person to help us update some of our older Mac and iOS apps. Maybe that’s you!

Requirements:

  • Experience with Mac and iOS development (either professionally or on your own)
  • Familiarity with web APIs
  • Proficiency in Swift
  • Ability to read (and understand) Objective-C

For the right candidate, it should be an interesting assignment. You’ll be rewriting existing Objective-C code as Swift, and bringing a 2019 perspective (and technology) to previously-solved problems. You’ll be working beside Nima Yousefi, who coded Highland,1 Weekend Read and a lot of other useful apps for writers. He’ll show you the ropes and help guide you through the process.

This is a contract gig, maybe 40 hours of work altogether, but there’s always the possibility of future projects. We’re looking for someone in Los Angeles who’s available on Tuesday and Friday afternoons for some in-person discussion.

The right person might be transitioning from another field, a college student, or someone on a gap year. You can look at this as an educational experience, intern-like, but definitely paid. If you’re a hobbyist coder considering becoming an indie app developer, it would be a good introduction. That’s how Nima got started.

Interested? Drop us a note to introduce yourself and your work. Please include links to stuff we can check out, especially Github and sample code.

  1. Fun fact: Highland 2 is almost entirely Swift, except for some very low-level stuff dealing with PDFs which goes all the way back to the original Highland. ↩