John August

Search Results for: index cards

Getting things done

Random Advice

questionmarkHow do you handle task management? I feel like every six weeks I try a new system and none of them seem to stick. Email reminders, iCal To Dos, “Things” for iPhone/iPad. I even tried index cards on a spare bulletin board.

Do you have a system you like and have stuck with?

— Jack
Atlanta

random adviceI use [Things](http://culturedcode.com/things/) for the Mac, iPhone and iPad.

I like it, but I share everyone’s standard complaint about it: your various devices should sync through the cloud, not just on local wi-fi.

Before Things, I was using a pretty standard [GTD/Moleskine](http://patrickrhone.com/2008/05/07/dashplus-in-action/) dash-plus setup. It worked reasonably well for me, but I didn’t like carrying around the extra notebook when I already had my iPhone. Plus, I’m at my desktop computer 80% of the time, so the ability to generate linked items with a quick keystoke pushed me over to Things.

Any system is only as good as the person using it. Task management thrives on small, quickly accomplished items. Learning how to break big jobs into little ones is a pretty crucial skill.

While I don’t go to nearly the OCD levels of many of his followers, I think David Allen’s Getting Things Done is a good primer for anyone.

Final Draft updated

Software

Final Draft, the screenwriting application I use most despite profound reservations, has been upgraded to 7.1.3. I haven’t gotten it to crash, so that’s something.

My assistant Chad had never used the Tools>Reformat command, which despite its clunky interface is a huge timesaver when importing text from other places.Including other Final Draft scripts. Too often, Final Draft will retain the margin and font information after a copy-and-paste, so it’s up to you to remind it that you really do want the dialogue lined up. Basically, it steps through your script paragraph by paragraph, waiting for you to press a key indicating which type of element — action, dialogue, parenthetical — that paragraph should be. If the formating is okay, ‘N’ will leave it alone and jump you to the next block. ‘P’ moves you back.

Make friends with Command-R.

One aspect of Final Draft I’ve long neglected is its ability to do multiple panes. I’ve never found splitting the window all that helpful, but with today’s giant monitors, I could see myself doing it more. One often needs to refer back to other parts of a script while writing a scene. Multiple panes make that marginally easier.

One annoyance is that Final Draft won’t let you see the two panels in different views. If I could see the “real” script on the right and the expanded script notes on the left, that would be helpful. But Final Draft can’t do that. The exceptions are Scene Navigator and Index Cards. Scene Navigator is almost worthless without the split screen. Index cards you either dig or you don’t. (I don’t.)

Screenwriting software survey results are in

Formatting, News

survey_iconTwo weeks ago, I [set up a survey](http://johnaugust.com/news/000085.html) to gauge how screenwriters felt about the screenwriting software they used. This morning, I closed the survey, which capped out at 130 responses — most of them coming the first week. My thanks to all the writers who participated.

Is 130 responses a statistically valid sample? Probably not, but we’re not electing a president here. The goal was just to get a better sense of how screenwriters felt, and on that level, I think the results are pretty clear.

As I talk through some of my observations, I’ll focus on three different groups. “All Writers” refers to anyone who responded to the survey. “Professional Writers” means respondents who identified themselves as earning their living as a screenwriter. Since I have no way of knowing whether these people *really* make their living off the screen trade, I’ll also single out “Verified Writers.” These are screenwriters who I personally emailed, so I know they do it for a living.

Over the next week or so, I’ll post some further thoughts and conclusions. But for now, I just wanted to present some general observations:

**1. Most screenwriters use Final Draft.**
In all, 75.2% of respondents used some version of Final Draft. For verified writers, that number rises to 100% (13 of 13). For all writers, the number two program was Movie Magic Screenwriter, followed by Microsoft Word and Sophocles.

**2. Most screenwriters are happy with their current program.**
A whopping 87% of respondents rate their program Good or Excellent, and 83% fall in the Satisfied camp. Those numbers drop to 77% and 78% for verified writers, but are still quite good.

**3. Real writers use Macs.**
Granted, that’s a biased bullet point. But it’s worth noting that among verified writers, Mac users outnumber Windows users by more than two-to-one (69.2% vs. 30.8%). In the less strict professional writers category, the numbers are roughly even (50% Mac vs. 47.1% Windows). Windows comes out on top for total respondents, 59% to 38.5%.

**4. There are a lot of features no one uses.**
Among these: index cards, collaboration, character name generator, computer voice reading, and email from within the program. Split screens could be added to this list, but since that’s a new feature for Final Draft v. 7, it’s understandable why most people don’t use it.

**5. People want features they don’t use.**
The great thing about surveys is that they can reveal logic inconsistencies. For instance, 51% of all writers never use script compare, yet 67% consider it Crucial or Important.

**6. Price is an issue, but people will pay for quality.**
For starters, 81.7% of respondents report using a legitimate copy of the program. We can’t know if that’s really accurate, but I’m inclined to believe it. While 58% of writers feel the software they are using costs too much, 47% said they’d be willing to pay $200 for their ideal screenwriting software, and another 39% said $100. To my eyes, that doesn’t seem to be a case of just wanting things cheaper, but wanting a better program for the money.

**7. Most people found the survey through my site.**
Which makes me feel all warm-and-fuzzy.

I conducted the survey using [SurveyMonkey](http://www.surveymonkey.com), which is cheap and brilliant. One of the very best things about the service is that by [clicking on this link](http://www.surveymonkey.com/Report.asp?U=46357727564), you can see all of the results for yourself. While you’re there, definitely try the “Edit Filter…” feature in order to see more specific sets of information. (Hint: Check the “Total” versus “Visible” figures to make sure you’re really looking at the data you want.)

As always, please post your comments. I have my opinions, but I’m very curious to know your thoughts about What It Really Means.

New Final Draft version 7.0 is…marginally better

Formatting, Geek Alert

finaldraftjpg
My screenwriting software of choice has long been [Final Draft](http://www.finaldraft.com), which is 90% great, 10% maddening and significantly better than any of the other programs I’ve tried — and believe me, I’ve tried a bunch. This past month, Final Draft came out with version 7.0, which was the first major update in a while.

On the plus side, the new version is stable. It hasn’t quit on me, and it hasn’t had the same [refusing-to-launch problem](http://johnaugust.com/2004/when-final-draft-wont-open-under-os-x) the last version had. It doesn’t choke on the previous version’s files, which is a problem I’ve encountered every previous integer-level upgrade.

One nice new feature is the ability to split a document window, so you can see two parts of the script at the same time. You can show one of the panels in scene-navigator view, or as index cards — which can now have two sides. On a big screen, keeping the left panel open to the scene navigator lets me click through to specific sections quickly.

Splitting the screen is helpful, but hardly revolutionary. Many Mac programs — including Microsoft Word — have had split windows for over a decade. Final Draft runs into familiar problems with this setup. If you make a selection in one panel that extends into the region shown in the other panel, the program freaks out. Caveat selector.

I never use Final Draft’s index cards. While in theory it would be great to reorganize your script just by moving some cards around, real life screenplays never work that way. Scenes aren’t Legos, and they can’t be flopped around willy-nilly. In my opinion, better choices for outlining are [Omni Outliner](http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnioutliner/) and [Pyramid](http://www.mindcad.com/). Each of these has free demo versions.

Final Draft 7 is apparently better at exporting .pdf files. That may be new for Windows, but if you’re using Mac OS X, I’d highly recommend using “Print…” and “Save to .pdf” instead. That way, you have all the options of the print dialog box, and you’re guaranteed to get just what the printer would.

There are other features I wish Final Draft had, such as XML export for the web, a clipping bin, and less-aggressive Smart Lists. But on the whole, the program works well for what I make my living doing. And for screenwriters lucky enough to have an honest-to-goodness movie on their hands, the production features alone are worth the price. Final Draft does a very solid job locking pages and tracking revisions, which makes sending out colored pages considerably easier than it has any right to be.

Should you buy Final Draft? Probably. Should you upgrade? That depends. If you’re happy with version 6, there’s really no pressing need. Version 7 isn’t bad, but it isn’t a huge improvement.