John August

Software

Final Draft serves left-overs

Software

This afternoon, I opened up a recently-created Final Draft script in TextMate, to see how easily I could pull out the text. As one would expect, there was a lot of incomprehensible goobledygook. But there was also a surprising amount of detritus left over from previous projects — notably Big Fish.

It’s a little troubling that words and phrases from projects more than five years old are still showing up in new script files. My hunch is that it has something to do with the spell-checker, since these are unusual words (or August-isms) that the program might have flagged.

I’ve cleaned up the formatting, but these are the words:

  1. CROSSFADE
  2. Mmm
  3. Enchanté
  4. Buick
  5. Jesus-down-at-the-carwash
  6. Pinnochio?
  7. Frankensteinian
  8. lawnmowers
  9. nightstand
  10. WHIRR
  11. co-signed
  12. Gainsville
  13. handbrake
  14. Rockwell-esque
  15. SQUISHING
  16. AP
  17. payphone
  18. Hmm
  19. notepad
  20. Oldsmobile
  21. Calloway
  22. GRAVESIDE
  23. WINSLOW
  24. Grampa’s
  25. Grampa?
  26. thataway
  27. Chevrolet
  28. Chevy
  29. missus
  30. Soggybottoms
  31. Winslow
  32. ya!
  33. Atari
  34. Hawkin’s
  35. uncatchable
  36. UNIV
  37. ça va?
  38. funeral-goers
  39. rainsoaked
  40. Allo oui?
  41. Crap
  42. Uh-huh
  43. chemo
  44. babysitting
  45. treehouse
  46. TREEHOUSE
  47. gonna
  48. crap
  49. twisty croc
  50. hafta
  51. wanna!
  52. Gimme
  53. unamused
  54. McHibbon
  55. IV
  56. ‘ssmooshing
  57. Johansen
  58. JOHANSEN
  59. POV
  60. ‘im!
  61. SHEPHARD
  62. ‘Cuz
  63. gotta
  64. improvin’
  65. hun’erd
  66. WINN-DIXIE
  67. checkstands
  68. WHIRRS
  69. Grampspopsicle
  70. FIREBREATHERS
  71. Soggybottom
  72. shit
  73. Hickville
  74. antsier
  75. Cadillac
  76. Samford
  77. babysit
  78. Skynard-loving
  79. pissed
  80. Unfazed
  81. ass-whupping
  82. FLASHFORWARD
  83. unshittable
  84. AHH! OHH!
  85. USO
  86. vampy

What’s more, this entire list showed up twice. Good job, Final Draft.

Final Draft buys Script magazine

News, Software

Today’s Variety reports that the makers of Final Draft have bought Script magazine and some related assets from Forum Publishing.

The deal probably makes sense for Final Draft. Rather than buy a big ad every month, why not just buy the whole magazine? Plus, Final Draft probably has a huge mailing list from its software registrations, which can help boost the circulation numbers.

Final Draft boss Marc Madnick is planning to redesign and relaunch Script in January. Given his company’s past record of upgrades — Final Draft 7.0, anyone? — here’s what I’d expect:

  • It will actually ship in 2008.
  • The staples will be in the wrong place.
  • An errant font will crash the magazine.
  • When you flip a page, the text will get jaggy.
  • Each issue can only be “installed” three times.

Can’t wait. Also…

Madnick said Final Draft is on track to sell about 35,000 software licenses this year.

That’s a lot of aspiring screenwriters. It also makes me wonder about the economics of screenwriting applications.

Final Draft’s list price is $229, but you can get it from Amazon for $169. Since we don’t know what percentage of their sales come from their own site and elsewhere, I’m going to pick $150 as their per-copy profit. That’s an arbitrary number, but it’s round, and we’re only looking for ballpark figures here.

35,000 x $150 = $5,250,000

Suffice to say, Microsoft won’t be going into the screenwriting software business. But for a lot of smaller software makers, that’s probably good money. Final Draft charges for tech support, so that’s not a big cost, and with online distribution, inventory costs are minimal. There’s certainly room for competing products.

But you won’t be reading about them in Script magazine.

Macworld review of Montage

Software

Macworld has a review of Mariner Software’s Montage, which is pretty much right on the money. They give it two out of five mice, admiring its interface while pointing out that it doesn’t do nearly as much as it should: page locking, scene numbering and many other standard features are still on the drawing board. Which is fine for a beta, but not a shipping product.

I like the Montage folks, and have been in e-mail contact with them about an even more fundamental issue for me — the way it handles dialogue across page breaks. They’ve been responsive, and seem to genuinely want to make a great application. Version 2 — or even 1.5 — might be terrific. Right now, Montage is a program that looks finished but isn’t.

I’ve moved beyond hoping for a Final Draft killer — the next version of Screenwriter should do that, assuming it ever ships. But competition breeds innovation, so I’ll always be watching Montage, Celtx and the other upstarts. One of them might just change the game.

From FD to MMS

Formatting, Rant, Software

Craig Mazin of Artful Writer has had enough headaches (and heartaches) with Final Draft. He’s switched over to Movie Magic Screenwriter. You can read about his reasons why here, followed by a lot of opinions from fellow screenwriters.

Me, I’m still using Final Draft, though as often as I complain about it, I should probably give MMS another look.