Wednesday 18 February 2009

Just got the script back to the state it was in at 4.30pm on Sunday

Every element of every section of the raw text version I had open on
Sunday has now been tagged, so now I have to let go, and start picking
up again where I left off.

Note: For anyone unfamiliar with screenplay format two days (i.e. 7
hours fitted around the "work that pays the bills") might seem a bit
epic, but every element - every scene location, scene description,
character name, "wryly", dialogue etc, has to be be tagged with the
correct format, margins etc. Screenplay software, like Celtx, Final
Draft, Movie Magic etc, adds this pretty much intuitively as you type -
although corrections still have to made manually.

But the tags aren't generally compatible between software packages, or
between the software and word.

Ironically, one of the reasons I swapped from Final Draft to Celtx in
the first place was that FD makes retagging so onerous - there are no
keyboard shortcuts for retagging - every line has to be selected, and
then an element tag selected for it by mouse. This is unbelievably
clunky, and bad news for anyone using a mouse - the only shortcut is the
one to RSI and wrist straps

So, the chastened return to Final Draft involved scrolling through 70
pages of pasted script, identifying and retagging 1000 separate
elements with 6 possible tags, and manually removing 3000 unwanted
carriage returns generated by the process.

I suppose I could have left it to do later - but without the tags it's
virtually impossible to navigate a 90 page script, find notes, swap
scenes, calculate time schemes etc.

Industry Standard Screenplay Software - Expensive and Neanderthal.

For example - lots of the features you and I might take for granted in
Word, like highlighting text you need to revise - well, go whistle for
it.

Which is all well and dandy when FD was first released back in the
1990s, but I'm using the most recent upgrade, at a horrendous cost -
and in the UK the price is double what the US pays, even for a
downloaded version - WTH! - I can only install it on two machines before
the key runs out, and in terms of usability it's like being flung in the
era of DOS and Locoscript. (Actually, I wrote my first script in
Locoscript on an Amstrad PCW in 1993, and the shortcuts were easier to use).

That's why I'm heartbroken that Celtx, my new squeeze, let me down.

Now, let's see if I can pick up where I left off.

What was this sodding story about again?

Anyone?

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