John August

John

Highland updated to 1.03

Apps, Fountain, Highland

Highland, our multi-purpose screenwriting app, has a free update in the Mac App Store. It’s [available now](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/highland/id499329572?mt=12).

Version 1.0.3 fixes several bugs, including one involving dual dialogue that made a mess on the page.

Something new: When bringing in a PDF or Final Draft file, Highland now appends (converted) to the title until you save the document with its own name. The goal is to make it clear to users that they’re creating a new document, not editing the old one itself.

If you’ve been enjoying Highland and haven’t [left a review](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/highland/id499329572?mt=12) on the Mac App Store, we’d certainly appreciate it. Thanks.

Building shotlists from Fountain screenplays

Fountain

Responding to a lazyweb request, Matthew McCowan built a handy little script/app for building shotlists from screenplays written in Fountain. Stu Maschwitz [explains](http://slugline.co/blog/shotlists):

> Fountain’s Notes [[like this one]] can contain any text you like, including multiple paragraphs. Since Notes don’t print, you can use them to store all kinds of useful information, such as notes on revisions, character bios, or even text that can have special, nerdy powers.

In this case, McCowan’s script is looking for notes that start with SHOT: and gathering them with the scene header to form a tidy shotlist. But you could easily generalize this to gather all notes, or tweak it to look for another criteria such as the name of the person giving the note.

One of the huge advantages of Fountain is its easy extensibility. Any tool that can work on plain text can work with Fountain.

The Origins and Formatting of Modern Screenplays

Video, Words on the page

In [this 15-minute video](http://vimeo.com/67418669), John Hess gives a terrific overview of the history of the screenplay format, and how changes in the film industry changed the way the words are arranged on the page.

I could quibble with a few things.

First, the modern screenplay has an obvious analogue in the stage play, and didn’t develop in a vacuum. Second, Hess gets a little proscriptive at the end of the video, and conflates screenwriting software with the format. (Which is part of why we made [Fountain](http://fountain.io), to untangle the writing from the formatting.)

But his overall point is worth making: the screenplay format *is* what it is, and it’s a fool’s errand to try something wildly different.

Eating dessert first

Writing Process

Joss Whedon on [getting things written](http://www.fastcocreate.com/1683167/how-to-be-prolific-guidelines-for-getting-it-done-from-joss-whedon):

> For me, it boils down to specificity, knowing exactly what I’m trying to accomplish, because if I have three projects, it’s ‘Oh, maybe I’ll work on S.H.I.E.L.D. or maybe I’ll work on this or this.’

> You know, it’s so easy to just get nothing done, but you’ve got to rock a little David Allen out to be able to get things done and break your list down into next actions. And this is true of producing and directing but even of writing.

> It’s like, Okay, today I am going to figure out this action sequence. Today, I am going to watch a shit ton of other action sequences, whatever it is, but that would be the other side of it after the specificity of knowing. Don’t just say, ‘Oh, I need to work on that.’ Say, ‘I need to work on this element of that.’ Absolutely eat dessert first. **The thing that you want to do the most, do that.**”