Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)The main advantage I see of using Montage over other software packages I've looked at is its simplicity and ease of use, focused on the writer. It opens quickly, has an easy-to-use and easy-to-learn interface, and at the same time has nearly all the features you'd actually need or use from more complicated and expensive programs.
You can set up several different screenwriting templates, depending on what kind of thing you're writing - various BBC genres, the standard American screenplay formats, comic book dialogue, television and musicals. You can have the various elements of the screenplay color coded or not, and can create your own template.
It's easy to shift between various views, such as the overall script view, the title page, or a scene or outline view; and there are templates for fleshing out information on characters and locations, or for various research notes. There is a place to outline tasks, contacts, queries, for writing up a synopsis. These various views are integrated, such that if you change the name of a character on the character view, the name will change throughout the script. These are all searchable via user identifiable key words. You can add annotations or notes to specific bits of the script, which would be very helpful during the revision process.
While the window for Montage is a standard Mac-style window, you can easily enter and exit a full screen view for a focus on your script that completely eliminates the distraction of seeing your other apps. The program as a whole is strictly focused on writers - while you can attach pictures for the characters and locations, there's nothing here that supports storyboarding and the like.
Some features don't work as intuitively as I'd like. For example, in the "Research" view you can add various topics with notes for each, but you can't tab from the name of the topic to get to the notes field - you have to actually mouse click into the notes field to make it active. I understand that a new edition of Montage is forthcoming, so it may be worth waiting. As it is, this is a simple and streamlined, no-frills alternative to some of the overpriced screenwriting programs out there. I like it because it puts the focus on writing - and makes it easy to avoid distraction from the main task of screenwriting which is using your imagination and hard work to create characters and a compelling story.
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