Everyone outside of Hollywood agrees that the most important ingredient to any film is a wonderful script. For microbudget filmmakers, it’s absolutely essential. However, many of us do not have a spare $250 to drop on a program that will help you write your screenplay in the proper format, like Final Draft or Movie Magic. There are a few smaller programs like Scrivener that have a better pricepoint, but neither the Final Drafts or the Scriveners of the world have added any updates that seem worthwhile enough for you to shell out more money for the latest version. Luckily, Adobe is bringing us a new add-on to their Creative Suite as well as a stand alone screenwriting program with a name that emanates the most important film element... Adobe Story.
There have been many upgrades since the invention of the typewriter, but upgrades within screenwriting programs have been rather stagnant...until now. Adobe Story has been running a beta test to find out exactly what filmmakers and aspiring screenwriters want in a writing program. Aside from the ‘buggy’ nature of a beta test, the results have been spectacular.
The Overall Layout of Story..
Story has the ability to store metadata from every element in your script, allowing it to be useful in a number of ways. Creating your preproduction reports, budgets, callsheets, prop and location lists become much easier when the data you need to glean from the script is already organized in whatever form you are looking for. Rather than just a screenwriting program, Story is a full production suite for microbudget and major budget filmmakers alike! Everything from character bios to identifying product placement opportunities, Story looks out for your entire production, not just your screenplay. This will also become importable to other programs within the Creative Suite: such as exporting pre-created shots for OnLocation, allowing better speech to text translation in post, metatagging for web content and scene info--loads of info that has become important in the information age. This could help your web videos get more hits, and help you complete your deliverables for distribution of your finished film.
