John August

John

Go, while you can get it

Charlie's Angels, Go, News

The deal between Starz and Netflix [expires March 1st](http://www.blackbookmag.com/movies/netflix-s-starz-partnership-expiring-on-march-1-titles-like-party-down-lost-forever-1.45409), so if you have any titles you’re eager to watch online, get cracking before they disappear.

You can see a list of what’s going to be lost [here](http://movies.netflix.com/WiContentPage?csid=1).

Among my movies, that includes Go and the first Charlie’s Angels. The Nines and Titan A.E. will still be available.

When might Go come back to Netflix? Or for that matter, Corpse Bride? I have no idea. Filmmakers get no advance warning, so if you see a film of mine suddenly become available, let me know.

Selling apps in bulk

Geek Alert, Software

A much-loved entertainment company wrote last week, asking for forty copies of [Bronson Watermarker](http://quoteunquoteapps.com/bronson), our PDF watermarking app for the Mac.

In the normal App Store (the one for iPhones and iPads), volume licensing is fairly straightforward. I assumed we could do the same thing for our Mac app.

[I was wrong.](http://www.cultofmac.com/148229/apples-mac-app-store-is-great-for-consumers-but-a-big-problem-for-business/)

Currently, there’s no way for us to do volume licensing through the Mac App Store. At first glance, that seems to be no big deal, since Mac apps (unlike iOS apps) don’t have to be installed through official channels.

We can just send them the app and save the 30% cut Apple would take.

Except:

* That means we’ll have to roll our own serial number system. (Or more likely, just forego it.)

* Without the Mac App Store’s update system, we’ll have to check for app updates another way. (Probably [Sparkle](http://sparkle.andymatuschak.org/).)

* Under the next version of OS X (Mountain Lion), some users will choose the setting that *only* allows apps sold through the Mac App Store.

* We may be left maintaining two (or more) versions of the app.

For this much-beloved entertainment company, we’ll go ahead and make a custom version of Bronson with an update system baked in. Hell, we’ll send it along with cupcakes, because these folks are great.

But we can’t do it for everyone. The costs and hassle are just too high. Apple’s volume licensing situation for third-party apps clearly needs to be fixed.

The downside of TV’s golden age

Television

Ryan McGee argues that the success of HBO’s drama series has come with an [unexpected cost](http://www.avclub.com/articles/did-the-sopranos-do-more-harm-than-good-hbo-and-th,69596/?mobile=true):

> The Sopranos took a patient approach that rewarded sustained viewing. The promise that payoffs down the line would be that much sweeter for the journey didn’t originate with the HBO mob drama, but the series turned into the boilerplate for what passes as critically relevant television.

> But is this a good thing? The Sopranos opened up what was possible on television. But it also limited it. It seems silly to state that the addition of ambition to the medium has somehow hindered its growth, but making HBO the gold standard against which quality programming is judged has hurt television more than it’s helped it.

By focussing on series arcs rather than individual episodes, today’s acclaimed series don’t reward the traditional once-a-week viewer. Any given hour — McGee calls them “installments” rather than “episodes” — is judged primarily on how it moves along the bigger storyline.

> The single episode has taken a backseat in importance to the season, which itself is subservient to the series. Rather than take stock of what has just transpired, eyes get cast immediately toward that which is still unseen. In other words, what just aired gets mixed into what we’ve already seen in order to formulate opinions about the unknown future. After all, if we measure quality by the gold standard of HBO, then by definition, the best element of the show has yet to actually air.

McGee’s thesis is that by focussing so much attention and praise on the long-arc sagas, we’re discounting and discouraging the goal of writing great episodes every week.

I share his opinion, up to a point. Finding the balance between long-arc saga and the needs of any given episode is tricky. Few series do it well.

But on the whole, I’m happy with our current crop of ambitious dramas that spill beyond the margins of their assigned hours.

If I’m going to watch a show, I’m going to watch every episode. Yes, that means there are certain shows I still haven’t watched because I haven’t been able to commit to watching the whole thing. But that’s okay.

These series are out there waiting for me when or if I have time. They exist as unified pieces of entertainment the way CBS procedurals never will.

I can’t blame showrunners for writing novels rather than short stories.

(Speaking of which, thanks to [@Josh_Friedman](https://twitter.com/#!/josh_friedman) for the link.)

Say hello to Highland

Follow Up, News, Screenwriting Software

Today we’re announcing the beta release of [Highland](http://quoteunquoteapps.com/highland), our new screenwriting utility.

highland logoHighland lets you convert files between PDF, Final Draft (.fdx) and Fountain. It works in all directions.

→ It creates perfectly-formatted PDFs from Fountain or FDX files.

→ It creates future-proof Fountain files you can edit in any text editor.

→ It melts PDFs, making them editable.

That last part is basically magic. Highland can take almost any screenplay PDF and convert it back to an editable file in seconds.

Here’s a quick walk-through video I made to show how it works:

Highland is a Mac app. We’ll be selling it through the Mac App Store. But before we do that, we need screenwriters to beta test it.

This changes everything (into everything else)
—-

Screenwriters generally work with two kinds of files.

**Native files** like .fdx are for writing and editing. You need specific applications to use these files. They’re prone to obsolescence. If you have any old WriteNow files on your computer, you’ll have a hard time reading them.

**PDFs** are universal, and can be opened on nearly any device. Like digital paper, they’re basically frozen versions of the screenplay. They’re difficult to edit, in part because all the semantic information has been lost.

Last week, we introduced **Fountain files**, which split the difference between native files and PDFs. Because they’re plain text, they’re both universal and highly editable, since they can work with any text editor — and should for decades to come.

Highland is a quick way to move between these three formats.

Obviously, Highland is extremely useful for screenwriters who want to work in Fountain, or want to open a Final Draft file but don’t have the app. But its ability to convert PDFs is probably going to be its most-discussed feature.

Melting PDFs
—

It’s standard practice for screenwriters to deliver PDFs. Readers can easily read and print PDFs, but it’s onerous to change them — so they don’t.

As screenwriters, we’ve relied on security through difficulty: producers, directors and executives aren’t likely to mess with the PDF of a script because it’s just too much hassle.

Fountain takes away the hassle, for better or worse.

I fully expect some pitchforks: *How dare we assist the meddlers?*

I’d argue that there’s nothing inherently “safe” about turning in a PDF. Producers have always been able to muck around with scripts — it was just a lot of work. Relying on laziness is really no security at all.

With Highland, we’re going to respect the basic safeguards a screenwriter might take:

1. If you password-protect your PDF, Highland won’t convert it.
2. If your PDF is just a bunch of images, Highland won’t convert it. (For example, you could print your script then scan it, or use a feature like Bronson Watermarker’s “Deep Burn.”)

Could a meddling producer work around these safeguards? Absolutely. But she could also just have her assistant retype your script. That happens every day.

Highland and Fountain
—

LA-based screenwriters will have already guessed the origins of “Highland.”

Highland Avenue is a major north-south artery through Hollywood, just as Fountain is the famous east-west shortcut.

Much like how the real streets intersect, Highland and Fountain work well together — but they’re not the only ways to get somewhere.

Just as you can take many routes to drive through Hollywood, you should have lots of alternatives for working with your screenplay.

[Fountain](http://fountain.io) is an open-source markup scheme. We’re happy to see a lot of other developers embracing it. Some of them will come up with apps that are better than Highland, either by doing more or doing it smarter.

That’s the goal. That’s success.

But for today, Highland makes working with Fountain a lot easier. After this beta test, we hope to have an app that makes it effortless to move between formats and platforms.

If you want to help, we’re [accepting beta-testers now](http://quoteunquoteapps.com/highland#beta-signup). For this first round, we’re looking for fairly tech-savvy screenwriters — the app will fail, and we’ll need your help figuring out why. Down the road, we’ll expand the beta to get a better cross-sampling of users.

[Updated at 3:30pm: Due to great response — thanks! yikes! — we have all the beta testers we need for now. Follow us [@qapps](http://twitter.com/qapps) for news on future betas.]

We’re only going to add a few beta testers at a time, so not everyone will get picked. But if all goes well, we should be an inexpensive download before too long.

One More Thing
—

Remember my frustration about Final Draft’s old, incompatible .fdr format? The one with the [five-step workaround](http://johnaugust.com/2012/convert-old-final-draft-files-in-five-clever-but-tedious-steps)?

Well, Nima solved that last night. Highland will be able to open and convert .fdr files to modern formats.