Writing the screenplay
The screenplay in the project — write it together in industry format, import from Fountain, Final Draft or PDF, export, print and match its scenes to the project scenes.
The screenplay lives in the project and is written there — by several people at once. Every change appears straight away for everyone who has it open. You see the Screenplay tab with the read right for the screenplay; actresses and actors with the right to sides see only their own scenes (see Revisions, translations, sides).
The editor
1 The scene list with number and page count — on a tablet this button opens it as a window of its own. 2 The text in industry format. 3 The element of the line you are writing in.
Every line is an element: Scene heading, Action, Character, Dialogue, Parenthetical, Transition or Centered. A line starting with INT. or EXT. becomes a scene heading; a character is followed by dialogue. You switch the element through the choice or Search for an element…. Pages count as in print — A4, Courier 12 pt — and every scene names its length in eighths of a page.
If the connection for writing together is lost, the screenplay becomes read-only so that nothing is overwritten that others have changed in the meantime. Reconnect makes it editable again.
Importing
1 Upload a file: Fountain (.fountain), Final Draft (.fdx) or PDF. 2 Or paste Fountain text. 3 What was detected, before you take it over.
A PDF is read and turned into Fountain text, which you can still correct before taking it over; a scanned PDF without a text layer cannot be read. The import replaces the whole text in the editor — Export the current version as a backup saves the old state first, and afterwards the original file lies in the screenplay backup. A screenplay needs at least one scene heading.
Exporting and printing
Under Tools you download the screenplay as Fountain (.fountain) or Final Draft (.fdx). Print screenplay creates a PDF in A4, Courier 12 pt:
Breakdown marks, translation and revision marks are not printed and do not shift the page breaks.
Matching scenes
The scenes in the text are not automatically the scenes you plan with. Match scenes connects the two: on the left the screenplay's scenes, on the right the project scenes from the schedule, call sheet and breakdown.
1 The Screenplay scene. 2 The Project scene it belongs to. 3 Creating all open ones turns every screenplay scene that is still free into a project scene.
Every screenplay scene belongs to exactly one project scene. If a project scene is already matched with another screenplay scene, the window asks before moving it. Remove the assignment undoes a connection, Save the assignments takes everything over.
When the screenplay changes
If you change the text of a matched scene, Effect of the screenplay change shows what hangs off it in the planning: shooting days, call sheets, breakdown elements. It is a checklist — nothing changes by itself.
Discard screenplay and start over deletes the text, all revisions and the working language. Because this cannot be undone, you type DISCARD to confirm.
What happens when …
| When … | then … |
|---|---|
| two people write at the same time | each sees the other's changes at once, without anything being overwritten. |
| you import a screenplay | it replaces the text; you then update the project's scenes and roles with Import entries, without duplicates. |
| a project scene is already matched | the window asks before moving the connection to another screenplay scene. |
| the text of a matched scene changes | the checklist shows what is affected in the planning. |
| the connection drops | the screenplay becomes read-only until Reconnect works again. |