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John August

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Scriptcast

Clarifying scene geography

July 15, 2022 Follow Up, Formatting, Scriptcast, Words on the page

Based on an earlier Three Page Challenge entry — and with the blessing of writer Andrew McDonald — I’ve posted a new video in which I revise a scene in real time. Along the way, I discuss how small choices on the page can help (or hurt) a reader’s ability to understand where characters are […]

How to convert a PDF to Final Draft

November 15, 2013 Formatting, Fountain, Geek Alert, Highland, How-To, Scriptcast, Software

Screenwriters often find themselves with PDF of a screenplay when they actually need a Final Draft (.fdx) file that they can edit. Here are three ways to convert from PDF to fdx, ranging from painful to sublime.

Writing better dialogue

August 26, 2010 Scriptcast, Words on the page

Today’s scriptcast is nominally about dialogue, but I ended up switching a lot of stuff around in the scene in order to accommodate new — and less — dialogue.

Writing better scene openings

April 28, 2009 How-To, Scriptcast

A scriptcast on how to begin a scene for more impact.

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