Archive notice: This article was originally published on October 6, 2006. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
The entire field of film production now runs digitally with sophisticated programs – except for writing the screenplay: Here authors have to resort to Microsoft Word, a program that is not particularly suitable for screenplays, but is used for lack of alternatives. Yet the screenplay forms the basis for every film. Even a simple screenplay, as needed for a documentary or a TV report, must have at least two columns (audio and video). It should also be possible to enter further information for each scene, such as the shooting location, the planned length of the scene and the shot size. This is not possible with Word’s style sheets. They can be used to lay out a text like a Hollywood-style screenplay, but if you want to insert, rearrange and number scenes, the work becomes difficult.
Apart from Word, until now the only option was to write screenplays with an English-language program, for example with the 230-dollar “Final Draft”. However, solutions like these are designed primarily for feature-film screenplays, not for TV reports, industrial films or documentaries, and are too expensive for many users.
Mediabook-Verlag wants to close this gap and offers the two screenplay programs EasyScript basic and EasyScript advanced for Windows XP and Mac OS X (from 10.3). Unlike Word, the tools work scene-oriented. Screenplays can be written in two columns for audio and video, and any number of scenes can be created, inserted, deleted and changed in their order. For each scene, the shot size, for example long shot, can be specified. The screenplay can be printed completely or in excerpts sorted by shooting locations. All screenplays are saved in a single document. The main file in which all screenplays are combined is – even with many screenplays – only between two and four MBytes, and the entire program with all DLLs and the other files is less than 60 MBytes in size. A security backup even on a USB memory stick is thus possible without problems.
EasyScript basic is available immediately and costs 34.80 euros in the download version and 39.80 euros as a box version. EasyScript advanced is to be available shortly and cost 44.80 euros as a download or 49.80 euros as a box version. It additionally offers the option of inserting a scene image for each scene and entering information about the music and sound effects in a separate field.
Further versions aimed specifically at documentary filmmakers, industrial filmmakers or authors of feature-film screenplays are to follow in 2007.
A demo version of EasyScript basic can be downloaded from the manufacturer’s homepage. The number of screenplays is limited to one screenplay with 25 scenes, and there is no time limit.
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