Write Brothers Movie Magic Screenwriter (PC & Mac) Review

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(More customer reviews)For years, I used to use Microsoft Word to develop all of my scripts in. While it could be done, it wasn't the best nor the easiest way to do it. I had always put off buying specialized software to do something that but the problem is that I spent more time formatting and paginating my scripts than I did writing.
Finally, I decided to break down and buy scripting software. But before deciding on which one to buy I did a little research on the titles that were currently available. I wanted to make sure I got the best product for the right price. What ultimatly sold me on Movie Magic Screenwriter 2000 was that both the Writers' Guild of America and Project Greenlight both recommend this software.
One of the claims made by the software company is the ability to get up and running right out of the box. I found this to be--for the most part--true. Upon receiving my copy, I was entering my first script in about 30 minutes (including installation time). There are some things that you may need to know, but the software company was intuitive enough to add booklets that contain this information in it so that you didn't have to hunt through the manual.
There are also a nice collection of templates included with the software that allows you to write for both movie and television (like I do). The templates for the TV shows comes in many different flavors (Sci-fi, sit-coms, dramas, etc.) and are even set up in the format used by several different shows.
What I especially appreciated was the fact that Screenwriter 2000 kept track of the names of my characters. I used to have to do this on scratch pads and Post-It notes or I would have to read back in the script to find a name. In Screenwriter 2000, I can call up a list of names to find the one I'm looking for. I'm able to do the same thing with scene heading, so I can keep my scenes in a consistant format.
Since I post some of my work on Zoetrope.com for review by other writers, the fact that I can create an Adobe file (.pdf format) was also of importance to me. While I could use a translation program to turn my Word document into an Adobe file, such translators have their problem and don't always retain the format that you created. With Screenwriter 2000, my Adobe documents come out looking the same as the original file. But this feature wasn't as intuitive as I had thought it would be. I was expecting this feature to be a part of the file exporting system. Instead, it's part of the print function. (You "print" a .pdf file.)
While there are a lot of pros about the software, there were also several cons, which is why I only rated it four stars. One is that this software is set up to installed on both the Mac and the PC from the same box. Becuase of that, they designed the user manual to address both opperating systems by printing it as a flip book. (One side has the instructions for the PC--flip the book over--the other side has the instructions for the Mac.) This means that the index is in the center. If you use an index as often as I do, plan on placing a bookmark there.
Another problem is that not all of the features available to the PC user is available to the Mac user. As of this review, only one feature--the Storyboard Linking--was not available on the Mac. However, this should be of little consiquence to the average user (unless you're a professional writer in Hollywood with a Mac).
Finally, one feature that was touted to me time and again was the voice readback capability. By using a Text-to-Speech engine, you can have your script read back to you, even to the point of assigning different voices to the different characters. It took a little effort to get this feature working on my PC, and when I did it sounded like a room full of Stephen Hawkings reading my screenplay.
Still, as softwares goes, this is possibly the best product out on the market.

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Fully integrated screenplay formatter, word processor and index card system Spell Checker & ThesaurusDrag and Drop EditingExtensive Importing & ExportingScript NotesOptional Foreign Dictionaries - Danish, Dutch, French, Finnish, German, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish, Swedish, and UK EnglishReal Time FormattingProduction featuresAuto-RecognitionsTab/Enter SimplicityScript Scanning

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Montage (Mac) Review

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(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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Movie Magic Screenwriter Version 6 Review

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(More customer reviews)If you write scripts for film or TV, there's really no need for a review of this product. Screenwriter 6 is what you're going to use. There's a competing product called Final Draft, but from what I hear, writers in film and TV are now flocking to this.
But I'm here to report that Screenwriter 6 is not simply for film and TV writers. I do some script work, but I'm primarily a fiction writer. I started using Screenwriter 2000 (this program's predecessor) about a year ago, and after a couple of weeks I converted all my work-in-progress to it and never looked back. Now, with the new features in v. 6, it's even better. I'm writing short stories and a novel in Screenwriter, and having a better experience than with any other software I've tried.
For one thing, I've been waiting more than 20 years for somebody to get document outlining right. Screenwriter 6 nails it. You can see and navigate the structure of even long, complex projects quite easily -- by chapters, scenes, or any other element you choose, including notes. You can have as many types of notes as you want -- to-dos, action summaries, research queries, whatever you use notes for. You can insert bookmarks. You can see your scenes as index cards that you can drag around. You could write "War and Peace" in this thing and not get lost. That's the main reason many fiction writers will want to start using this.
But the program is also much smoother and much less obtrusive than most other writing software. It stays out of your way while you're working, yet it automatically does what you need it to do. Screenwriter is a formatting program. Fiction writers have far fewer formatting concerns than scriptwriters, but they have some, and they want to set up a manuscript and stop thinking about it. When a chapter or a section begins or ends, a certain thing should happen. It might be a page break, or some white space, or an indentation change, or whatever. With Screenwriter, it happens. You don't think about it.
In more than 20 years on the Macintosh, I've used (or at least tried) every piece of writing software on the market -- commercial, shareware, freeware. None of them was entirely satisfying. I was never really happy. Today, I'm happy. If you plan to spend a lot of your life in front of a laptop creating dramatic or narrative work of one sort or another, the price of this software (especially with the Amazon discount) is a ridiculous bargain.
Note: Screenwriter is NOT the sort of program that attempts to help you write "formula" work by suggesting story-structures, plot developments, character conflicts, story "problems," etc. The creators of Screenwriter have a program for that, called Dramatica. I don't use such things. If you want that, you can go buy it. Note also that Screenwriter is not for academic writers who need footnotes, citations, etc. For the Macintosh only, there's a great and inexpensive program for that kind of writing called Mellel.

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Movie Magic Screenwriter is the best selling screenplay formatting software and the choice of Hollywood professionals. Screenwriter automatically formats while you write so you can focus on what you're writing, not where it goes on the page. It also formats for television, stage, novels and comic book scripts so you've got an all in one package for any story you want to write. With a massive set of features designed to make the rewriting process fast and simple you can get from FADE IN: to FADE OUT effortlessly. Create outlines, insert notes and create various note categories, online collaboration, the ability to compare drafts of screenplays and the most comprehensive production features of any screenwriting software all make Movie Magic Screenwriter the clear choice for getting your stories from concept to screen.

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