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"Am really curious: what's the plan to foist this onto the Hollywood screenwriters?" Final Draft is the industry standard at the moment, and it has been for 20

"Am really curious: what's the plan to foist this onto the Hollywood screenwriters?" Final Draft is the industry standard at the moment, and it has been for 20-odd years. To disrupt it, you could explore certain channels: dedicated websites and communities for writers; USC, NYU, and other film schools; or get studios and and agencies to accept it, which is ultimately where you need to win approval to get adopted as a standard. In any of these scenarios you'd probably need Final Draft import/export compatibility to get started and minimize switching costs.

petegrif 11y ago
There is absolutely NO incentive for anyone to change. The valued added (if any) is not large enough to change established practices.
- runevault 11y ago
  Not totally true, based on everything I've heard FD is a pile of crap that chugs, crashes, and can eat your file. Mind you that hasn't stopped it from remaining on top for now, but I would not be surprised if it stops being the default in the next 5-10 years.
  - toyg 11y ago
    From a cursory read of its website, it looks like a pre-internet app, basically a glorified text editor. There are zero network-enabled features. The only groupware-oriented feature is coloring pages differently if someone else edits the document. There is plenty of scope for disruption here. The only "key feature" they have is that everyone in Hollywood uses FD. They say so themselves on their website! The "Key features" screen does not list any actual feature, it's just a list of variations on the concept that "everyone in Hollywood uses FD". In that sense, the main challenge is clearly political rather than technological.
    - runevault 11y ago
      Colored pages isn't about group editing per se, it is an artifact of not being able to change page numbers to avoid screwing with the shooting script. Instead you have like page 5 and then 5 red that is the extra page.
troyinjapan 11y ago
Final Draft was the first to market and is the most used, but hardly the most loved. They are the IE of screenwriting software. The industry standard is .PDF. As long as you can get to .PDF, all is good. All modern screenwriting software supports the Fountain syntax, except Final Draft. Final Draft is the dinosaur of the industry, and they are dying. One man shops are making far superior software at a lower price and that are far less buggy. One you get into production, Final Draft might be needed, but many places aren't updated their overpriced licenses. The top "traditional" software packages for screenwriting now are either Fade In Pro ($50) or WriterDuet (free/$99 one time license for all the extras). Both support Fountain. http://www.fadeinpro.com/page.pl?content=comparison http://www.fadeinpro.com/page.pl?content=comparison https://writerduet.com/blog/ https://writerduet.com/blog/ If you're only writing in Fountain and then to PDF, Highland and Slugline are the other options. They are both under $30. http://slugline.co/blog/sushi http://slugline.co/blog/sushi I also like afterwriting.com. Bascially it's Highland in a browser that can sync to Google Docs and Dropbox for free. http://afterwriting.com/# http://afterwriting.com/# The great things about Fountain is that you can just use any text editor you want and then import into a Fountain compatible package and that it's very readable.

petegrif 11y ago

There is absolutely NO incentive for anyone to change. The valued added (if any) is not large enough to change established practices.

runevault 11y ago
Not totally true, based on everything I've heard FD is a pile of crap that chugs, crashes, and can eat your file. Mind you that hasn't stopped it from remaining on top for now, but I would not be surprised if it stops being the default in the next 5-10 years.
- toyg 11y ago
  From a cursory read of its website, it looks like a pre-internet app, basically a glorified text editor. There are zero network-enabled features. The only groupware-oriented feature is coloring pages differently if someone else edits the document. There is plenty of scope for disruption here. The only "key feature" they have is that everyone in Hollywood uses FD. They say so themselves on their website! The "Key features" screen does not list any actual feature, it's just a list of variations on the concept that "everyone in Hollywood uses FD". In that sense, the main challenge is clearly political rather than technological.
  - runevault 11y ago
    Colored pages isn't about group editing per se, it is an artifact of not being able to change page numbers to avoid screwing with the shooting script. Instead you have like page 5 and then 5 red that is the extra page.

troyinjapan 11y ago

Final Draft was the first to market and is the most used, but hardly the most loved. They are the IE of screenwriting software. The industry standard is .PDF. As long as you can get to .PDF, all is good. All modern screenwriting software supports the Fountain syntax, except Final Draft. Final Draft is the dinosaur of the industry, and they are dying. One man shops are making far superior software at a lower price and that are far less buggy. One you get into production, Final Draft might be needed, but many places aren't updated their overpriced licenses. The top "traditional" software packages for screenwriting now are either Fade In Pro ($50) or WriterDuet (free/$99 one time license for all the extras). Both support Fountain. http://www.fadeinpro.com/page.pl?content=comparison http://www.fadeinpro.com/page.pl?content=comparison https://writerduet.com/blog/ https://writerduet.com/blog/ If you're only writing in Fountain and then to PDF, Highland and Slugline are the other options. They are both under $30. http://slugline.co/blog/sushi http://slugline.co/blog/sushi I also like afterwriting.com. Bascially it's Highland in a browser that can sync to Google Docs and Dropbox for free. http://afterwriting.com/# http://afterwriting.com/# The great things about Fountain is that you can just use any text editor you want and then import into a Fountain compatible package and that it's very readable.