John August

Weekend Read

Midseason Finale

Episode - 188

Go to Archive

Film Industry, Follow Up, News, Scriptnotes, So-Called Experts, Three Page Challenge, Transcribed, Weekend Read, WGA

Craig and John wrap up many plotlines from previous episodes, with follow-up on Three Page Challenges, diversity numbers, Road Runner and other rules, plus the Gravity lawsuit in light of the Blurred Lines verdict.

Then, it’s time to start whole new storylines with discussion of the future of the show, including the Full Script Challenge and the possibility of not losing money on this whole venture. We want to know what you think, so tell us via email, Twitter or our long-neglected Facebook page, which we actually promise to check this week.

And there’s more! Weekend Read 1.5 adds iPad and iCloud support. Courier Prime has two new variants, Courier Prime Sans and Courier Prime Source.

Plus John and his compatriots will be testing a brand-new tabletop game in LA next Monday, and need your help. (Link below.)

Links:

* [Weekend Read now has iPad support, iCloud sync and folders](http://quoteunquoteapps.com/weekendread/)
* [Download Courier Prime Sans and Courier Prime Source now](http://quoteunquoteapps.com/courierprime/)
* [PAX East](http://east.paxsite.com/)
* [If you live in LA, sign up to help us test a new tabletop game on March 23](http://johnaugust.com/game)
* [Scriptnotes, 187: The Coyote Could Stop Any Time](http://johnaugust.com/2015/the-coyote-could-stop-any-time)
* [WGAw 2015 Writer Access Project](http://www.wga.org/content/default.aspx?id=3436)
* [Wiley Vs. Rhodes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ5p9WttVhE) on YouTube
* [Scriptnotes, 186: The Rules (or, the Paradox of the Outlier)](http://johnaugust.com/2015/the-rules-or-the-paradox-of-the-outlier)
* [Begging the question](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question) on Wikipedia
* The New York Times on [What’s Wrong With the ‘Blurred Lines’ Copyright Ruling](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/12/arts/music/whats-wrong-with-the-blurred-lines-copyright-ruling.html?_r=0)
* [12 Signs of a Promising Spec Script](http://www.scriptmag.com/features/meet-the-reader-12-signs-of-promising-spec-script) by Ray Morton
* [Email us at ask@johnaugust.com](mailto:ask@johnaugust.com) or [leave us a comment on our Facebook page](https://www.facebook.com/scriptnotes?_rdr)
* [Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt](http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/80025384?locale=en-US) on Netflix
* FiveThirtyEight on [Draftback for Google Docs](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/watch-me-write-this-article/)
* Laughing Squid on [VeinViewer](http://laughingsquid.com/veinviewer-a-medical-system-that-projects-an-image-of-veins-on-skin-to-help-clinicians-insert-an-iv/)
* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by Scriptnotes listener Kristian Gotthelf ([send us yours!](http://johnaugust.com/2014/outros-needed))

You can download the episode here: [AAC](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/scriptnotes_ep_188.m4a) | [mp3](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/scriptnotes_ep_188.mp3).

**UPDATE 3-22-15:** The transcript of this episode can be found [here](http://johnaugust.com/2015/scriptnotes-ep-188-midseason-finale-transcript).

Weekend Read 1.5 now in beta, adds iPad and iCloud support

Apps, Weekend Read

weekend read iconWeekend Read, our app for reading screenplays on the iPhone, will be adding two much-requested features in the next major update:

– iPad support, including the iPad mini
– iCloud syncing between your devices

The new features in Weekend Read require iOS 8.

If you’d like to join the beta, you can sign up here:

* indicates required



This truly is a beta; things will break. The good news is that the stable version of Weekend Read is always [on the App Store](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/weekend-read/id502725173?mt=8), so it’s simple to delete the beta and reinstall something solid.

We’ll be adding a few new testers each week, so we likely won’t get to everyone. But we definitely need a variety of users who can test the new version out in the wild, because a lot has changed under the hood.

## What’s new

Weekend Read 1.5 adds support for the iPad, both in portrait and landscape orientations. iPad support has been a long time coming, but was never urgent. Reading screenplay PDFs on the iPad isn’t bad even with current apps like GoodReader and PDFPro.

Weekend Read’s big advantage is that the app actually understands how screenplays work, so we can resize text, highlight characters, and offer Dark Mode. Even on the iPad, moving to a larger font size really helps reduce eye strain.

WR-ipad

Weekend Read 1.5 is also much faster rendering screenplays, particularly on newer iPhones and iPads. You’ll rarely see the progress bar.

The bigger change — the one that’s been by far the most work for Nima Yousefi — is the addition of iCloud features.

Here’s what’s now possible:

– If you add a screenplay on your iPhone, it automatically shows up on your iPad. (And vice-versa.)
– You can organize scripts into folders.
– You can import entire folders at once from the For Your Consideration lists. So it’s now one tap to install all of the 2014 Awards scripts, for example.
– If you’re on a Mac with OS 10.10 Yosemite, you can drag screenplays into the iCloud Drive > Weekend Read folder. Super handy.

I should stress that all of the above bullet points are goals, not guarantees. Part of the reason we’re extending this beta beyond our friends and family is that there are a lot of edge cases in which things get wonky. If we can’t make a given feature work reliably, we’ll ship without it.

## The work ahead

Weekend Read, and the beta, are free.

When we release the new version, we plan to have all the new features available for folks who’ve unlocked the app via in-app purchase. So to get more users ready, we’ve dropped the upgrade price for the next two weeks from $10 to $5. If you’ve been waiting for a sale, this is it.

If you haven’t tried Weekend Read, you can find it [on the App Store](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/weekend-read/id502725173?mt=8). We have 27 of the 2014 award contender scripts available to read, including nine of the Academy Award-nominated screenplays. We also have Scriptnotes transcripts going all the way back to first episode.

Screenplays on the Kindle, 2015 edition

Follow Up, Formatting, Fountain, Geek Alert, Highland, How-To, Weekend Read

A screenwriter friend just emailed me to ask how she could get one of her scripts to look good on the Kindle. She had Googled and discovered I’d written about reading screenplays [on the Kindle](http://johnaugust.com/2009/the-kindle-is-not-good-for-screenplays) [twice](http://johnaugust.com/2009/reading-scripts-on-the-kindle) back in 2009. (I was an early Kindle adopter.)

Back in 2009, I found there to be a lot of potential for reading screenplays on the Kindle, but a lot of frustration.

Six years later, what’s changed?

Nothing. Kindles and screenplays are still a bad fit.

Attempting to get screenplays to look screenplay-like on Kindle is a fool’s errand, so let me actively dissuade you from trying. Down this path lies futility and despair.

## It’s not the Kindle’s fault.

Kindles are designed for free-flowing text like books. They don’t know anything about how screenplays work, and they will fight you at every step. We know. We tried. That’s a large part of why we made [Weekend Read](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/weekend-read/id502725173?mt=8).

If you’re starting with a PDF, the closest you can probably come on the Kindle is to run the script through [Highland](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/highland/id499329572?mt=12) and save it as a Fountain file. That’s just plain text, so if you then import it into Kindle’s parser, you’ll get a rough approximation, with everything set on the left margin:

INT. HOUSE – DAY

Mary and Tom carry in groceries.

TOM
They oughta call it, “Whole Paychec—

— THWACK! Tom is impaled by a spear.

CUT TO:

I write in [Fountain](http://fountain.io), so this looks fine to me. But that’s not what my friend was looking for. She wanted something like a printed screenplay, and you’re just not going to get that on the Kindle.

But you can get closer. If you dig into the text file and carefully set tags for character names and transitions, you can have them centered or moved to the right margin. Or you can bail on the screenplay formatting. Dave Trottier has [instructions](http://blog.liberwriter.com/2011/08/18/formatting-a-screenplay-for-kindle/) you can follow to make something that looks more like a published stage play. It’s incredibly tedious, but it’s possible.

With a lot of work, you can make something that looks okay — but only okay. That’s the best you’re going to get, and it’s not worth the effort. So in 2015, I use my Kindle for books and my iOS devices for screenplays. Each is the right tool for the job.

Weekend Read, for your consideration

Awards, Weekend Read

weekend read icon[Weekend Read](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/weekend-read/id502725173?mt=8), our app for reading screenplays on the iPhone, now features scripts from 21 of this year’s award contenders.

* A Most Violent Year
* Belle
* Big Eyes
* Birdman
* Boxtrolls
* Boyhood
* Calvary
* Dear White People
* The Fault in Our Stars
* Foxcatcher
* The Gambler
* Get On Up
* The Grand Budapest Hotel
* Into the Woods
* Kill the Messenger
* Locke
* Love Is Strange
* St. Vincent (de Van Nuys)
* Still Alice
* Unbroken
* Whiplash

Weekend Read doesn’t host any of these files; we’re always linking to the official PDFs hosted on studio websites. In most cases, those scripts work great, but there are exceptions.

This year, the troublesome scripts are Gone Girl, The Imitation Game and Theory of Everything. Weekend Read 1.0.8 — in review now at Apple — handles these screenplays fine. It should be out later this week.

[Weekend Read is free](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/weekend-read/id502725173?mt=8), with a paid upgrade option to increase your library storage.