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Summary: Screenplays... Just Add Imagination
Review: I have been trying to develop my screenplays for years, but have always struggled against having to force the Industry Standard Script Format into my scripts. With this program, I can concetrate on the words rather than worrying about the formatting. The program effortlessly snaps into the Industry Standard and makes writing dialogue a snap.With a number of tools built in, this is an invaluable piece of software for any screenwriter's library. It practically pays for itself in the time it saves and the information it can pump out about your stories.
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Summary: I only have the demo.
Review: I only have the demo, and the demo is amazing. The only problem with the demo is that it won't save (because its a demo.) Now, if the demo is amazing, then, well, what do you think about the real product. I have the real product coming in the mail, and expect to be pleasantly surprised when i get it. It's features include a "read aloud" feature, which reads your words out to you. All in all, the demo is a great product, and so is the product.
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Summary: Best investment I've made for writing.
Review: I purchased Final Draft a couple of years ago, and it was the best investment for writing I've made yet. I had loads of story ideas in my head, but had no idea how to write a screenplay or teleplay, and didn't have the patience to read a book about it. I am a VERY basic computer user and feared formatting software would be nothing short of a nightmare, but within a month I formatted three one-hour teleplays, started on a screenplay, and knew how to navigate the software fairly well. The Smart-type feature is a lifesaver, and the various view, outline, and report features are incredibly helpful and save loads of time. There are a few features that were more complicated to learn, and as an absolute novice I had some questions that I couldn't find answers for in the program, but overall - I'm thrilled with it and use it everyday. I'd recommend this software to anyone, rank amateur or paid professional ,who's looking for a user-friendly, helpful, and reliable formatting system.
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Summary: Instruction book is worthless and phone support is $$$$$
Review: I test drove this and Movie Magic 2000 before making my purchase. Movie Magic is just NOT ready for prime time. It is BUGGY. The cursor will pop into different places on the screen after operations. The voice read uses windows system and is MUCH harder to control than Final Draft. Also, some of Move Magic's default formatting is outdated (like CONT after action between the same character which is no longer used). This is clearly better and more professional. Movie Magic may have more "options" but when you want a correctly formatted screenplay, what kind of options do your really need anyway? If you want to save the test drive time which I did for several days, go ahead and just get Final Draft. If you run the two side by side, you will see what I mean... Movie Magic is so unprfessional looking and feeling. I do hope they put an index and a way to edit in index mode in future versions however. Mike
Rating:
Summary: Better than Movie Magic 2000 - Not Buggy
Review: I test drove this and Movie Magic 2000 before making my purchase. Movie Magic is just NOT ready for prime time. It is BUGGY. The cursor will pop into different places on the screen after operations. The voice read uses windows system and is MUCH harder to control than Final Draft. Also, some of Move Magic's default formatting is outdated (like CONT after action between the same character which is no longer used). This is clearly better and more professional. Movie Magic may have more "options" but when you want a correctly formatted screenplay, what kind of options do your really need anyway? If you want to save the test drive time which I did for several days, go ahead and just get Final Draft. If you run the two side by side, you will see what I mean... Movie Magic is so unprfessional looking and feeling. I do hope they put an index and a way to edit in index mode in future versions however. Mike
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Summary: Better to be safe
Review: I use an APPLE so I can't say about "PC." But I lost 5 months work because of a "bug" in Final Draft 6. I wrote the script for their competition and cannot enter b/c of buying their software. Ironic! I looked to "FD" for help but they wouldn't.. I just got emails and more emails... your message "did not process." The person at "FD" didn't even understand my questions? I got emails that my email address had changed (Nope). And to talk with someone even when its an error with their product they charge per minute. According to APPLE and a local service center, it was determined I was right it was a "FD" software problem. And a headache with authorization and deauthorization. I'm shopping on AMAZON for a new product like Movie Magic. As painful as my script loss is b/c of "FD." What hurt more was their ignoring me like I'm an idot and not interested in fixing a bug that could harm all customers. It cost to learn! Oh I did back up- No help, the problem is software and when it went it took all my text! Data recovery found a part of my script so I will rebuild from there-
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Summary: Beats everything else!
Review: I'm not sure about many of the people who've posted before me, but I use Final Draft 6 on both Mac OS X and Windows NT and have had no problems. The product is better designed and easier than any other scriptwriting software. I don't know why you'd want to use anything else. Every professional writer I know in Hollywood uses Final Draft. That's why I got it.
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Summary: App problems
Review: I've use Final Draft for about 4-5 years and in terms of development as a useful app it has done nothing but sit still. It is in fact a dinosaur, a left-over from a forgotten era when computers (macs in particular) were a pain and totally incompatible. The Mac community has changed dramatically in the past 3 years. Final Draft is, at best, doing the bear minimum. It continues to be the one app I use on a daily basis that I hate. I hate it because it is buggy, clunky and doesn't conform to MacOS standards. I hate it because it uses proprietary standards for everything (including e-mailing scripts), it fails to take advantage of Quartz smoothing, the toolbar is the ugliest thing I have ever seen, the layout of the program doesn't make any kind of sense, the different "modes" do NOT function as they should, you cannot export into an useful format whatsoever (the only way to send a script to someone is via OSX's built in PDF exporting, and thank god for that), and all the "bonus tools" like scene reports and location reports are utterly useless. And don't even get me started on the authorization process. I have absolutely no problem with companies requiring some kind of direct consumer-producer contact to authorize that you actually bought the software but the implementation you've developed is unusable. What kind of sense does it make to ask that a person de-authorize their hard drive before they re-format it when one of the only times one must do this is when the system goes down and access to the app is impossible? I've had to do it a few times, and I've moved computers a few times. Every single time I attempt to de-authorize the computer online, it as failed. Oh, it tells me while I'm de-authorizing that everything is honky-dory, but come to find out that it's not and the ONLY way to fix it is to make a phone call. I also have no problem with the phone, but what kind of a company in a multi-billion dollar a year business is not open on the weekends!? This has happened to me in the middle of production and I had to use a pirated version to get my work done. I could go on about the shortcomings of the app, but I think the point is made. Beware Final Draft, your days are numbered. Linux is ready to crush Microsoft in the business and server markets because companies refuse to choke down one more piece of bad code and wait in vain for the next "security update" which will do little to protect them against real threats. Businesses are realizing that open industry standards provide them with both flexibility and insurance against obsolesce. Unless you too make this realization, you too will become obsolete. This is by far the worst quality app on my computer, and the one I use every single day. You want to improve things? Take a look at Mellel. Take a look at anything the Omnigroup is doing, Take a look at Nisus Express (even though it is a half-ass app). Take a look at any cocoa app written in the past year, hell take a good look at TextEdit. Take your costumers seriously and support, for real, open industry standards like RTF and XML, which would make your product easy to use and much, much better.
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Summary: It formats everything to industry standard.
Review: If you want your screenplay to look like an industry standard screenplay then FD6 will do exactly just that. It is also simple to use and the learning curve is like 10 minutes. It is so easy to format a screenplay that you will no longer need to pay attention to the format. Once you understand how it works your ideas will flow from you brain and will almost automatically format themselves correctly on the page. This is a must for any screenplay writer. However this package is a waaaaaay toooooo expensive!!! Please lower the cost of this thing by a $100. People need software like this for school theatre work and other community scribes.
Rating:
Summary: THE BEST
Review: ITS EASY AND EFFECTIVE. DONT SETTLE FOR ANYTHING LESS THAN THIS. IT IS THE BEST SCRIPTWRITING SOFTWARE AVAILABLE!
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