If you encounter any problems with your FINAL DRAFT software, we invite you to try our new online troubleshooter, an easy-to-use support tool that may resolve your issue quickly.  The troubleshooter will ask you a series of simple multiple-choice questions about the trouble you are having, filter that information and provide you with a solution – similar to how a live technician would work.   It’s accessed from within the online knowledge base on our website and is open to everyone; registered users may also open a ticket with a Final Draft, Inc. technical support representative via email, live chat or telephone.

To use the troubleshooter, visit troubleshooter.finaldraft.com/troubleshooter.php?nodeid=1.

The knowledge base, the troubleshooter and links to email, chat and phone support are available at www.finaldraft.com/help.

The FINAL DRAFT version 8 update, expected to release this fall, will provide users with improvements made to existing features like “Script Compare” as well as several new features like “Send to Script" and new templates. An exciting new addition is the 1-3-5 Story Structure template.  The 1-3-5 Story Structure template is based on the book The 1-3-5 Story Structure Made Simple System, which guides writers through incorporating the nine essential elements needed to sell your first script. Created by the book’s author and former story analyst, Donna Michelle Anderson (aka DMA), this template will offer writers insider assistance from the screenplay buyer’s point-of-view and more. Final Draft, Inc. welcomes this new partnership and plans to offer presentations, tutorials and webinars with new partner DMA to further educate writers on the 1-3-5 system. 

If you’d like to see the new and improved features in FINAL DRAFT version 8, please join Scott McMenamin, Final Draft, Inc. VP of Sales, for a one-hour webinar presentation. Attendee questions will be answered throughout the demo via instant messaging. After the webinar, the full Q&A will be made available on www.finaldraft.com and emailed directly to all participants.

Capacity for this presentation is limited, so reserve your space today!  See below for details.

The Final Draft, Inc. SCRIPTXPERT coverage service simulates the entertainment industry submission process. After you’ve spent months writing your spec script, you want feedback from trusted professionals before you send your script out to the market. Final Draft, Inc. provides you access to industry readers with five-plus years of experience reading for major companies. These readers will give you the same feedback they give the agents, managers, and producers who employ them. Take your script for an industry test drive today!

Act now! Use code XPFS9 and get 20% off any service that includes basic or extended coverage at www.finaldraft.com/scriptxpert.

Are you pulling together a mass of research, notes and ideas to structure and create that difficult first draft of your script or treatment?

Enter Scrivener, the word processing and project management program for OS X that makes all the tools you have scattered around your desk available in one application. With Scrivener, you can create limitless text and script documents within the same project. Compose scenes separately or merge them dynamically to edit them as a whole. Bring in research or media files and view them in split screen as you write. Use full-screen mode for distraction-free composition. View scenes or documents as synopses on a virtual corkboard or outliner to rearrange and structure your draft.

And when your first draft is complete, export to FINAL DRAFT version 8 for final formatting, editing and production.

Scrivener: From first draft to FINAL DRAFT.
Learn more at www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.html.

The BIG BREAK finalists have been chosen! These top-ranking screenplays were among the many notable entries sent in from all over the world. Congratulations to these writers for achieving a place in the BIG BREAK finals. Our 10-year anniversary also brings a rarity — two screenplays from the same writer achieved finalist status. An elite industry jury is judging the top scripts and their scores will determine the winner. The top-three winners will be announced on October 30, 2009. 

2009 FINALISTS (listed in alphabetical order)

• Nathan Blackwell, Phoenix, AZ — Transgalactic Zoo
• Karen Briner, Los Angeles, CA — Amanzi
• Mary Casavant, New York, NY — Judgey
• Robert Jason Clark, Lyndhurst, NJ — Awaken
• Michael Ennis, Middletown, CT — Bobby & Dawn
• Craig Houchin, Sunland, CA — Ludlow
• Rob Leininger, Reno, NV — Tough Kids
• Kevin Lee Miller, Los Angeles, CA — Trigger Mom
• J.R. Taylor, West Hollywood, CA — Minus Men
• J.R. Taylor, West Hollywood, CA — Borderland

Our heartfelt thanks go to all the entrants who made the 2009 BIG BREAK contest a success. We applaud you and are honored to bring recognition to promising screenwriters across the globe.

Looking for your next script to produce or writer to represent?
After our October 29 winner announcement, contact Liz Alani for information on this year's winners and finalists.

Liz Alani
Contest Director, Final Draft, Inc.
alani@finaldraft.com

Writers on the Verge
WRITERS ON THE VERGE showcases work from up-and-coming filmmakers whose scripts were written with FINAL DRAFT software. WRITERS ON THE VERGE is updated regularly to reflect recent highlights.  Here is our most recent posting:

Family X-mas
Family X-mas is a naughty comedy short film by Warren Eig whom we discovered through one of our friends on our YouTube channel.  Eig won “Best Comedy Short” at the WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival, “Best of the Fest” at the Newport Beach International Film Festival, “Best of the Fest” at the Wine Country International Film Festival, and placed among the top-10 nominated films at the Rhode Island International Film Festival (an Academy Award® qualifier). To view the trailer of Family X-mas, visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvJDMEUU3o4.

Final Draft, Inc. on YouTube
You can see more films we recommend by visiting our YouTube page.  If you have an award-winning film you have directed or produced that was written with FINAL DRAFT software, submit your trailer for feature consideration on WRITERS ON THE VERGE by becoming a Friend and Subscriber to our YouTube page at www.youtube.com/user/finaldraftsoftware, then sending us a message.

On the Scene

Cowrite Contest, August 2009
Los Angeles, CA
Final Draft, Inc. is proud to support the Cowrite Contest in association with Benderspink (The Hangover, A History of Violence).  Cowrite has announced its grand-prize winners, USC Film grads and writing partners Tim Dragga and Jacob Michael.  The writing team has been selected to complete the rewrite of the first draft of the community-sourced screenplay.  Once their rewrite is complete, Cowrite will attempt to sell the screenplay. All of the weekly Cowrite winners share in any script sale. To view our photo gallery, visit www.finaldraft.com/company/news-and-events/on-the-scene/20090800-cowrite.php.

In-kind Support
Final Draft, Inc. supports a variety of organizations that offer education, access and awards for the screenwriter.

Writers Boot Camp, the company that has been training writers around the world for 20 years in the craft of film and TV writing, and whose alumni has generated almost three quarters of a billion dollars in box-office sales, is launching a fellowship program.

The Writers Boot Camp Fellowship will scout aspiring film and TV writers from around the world, awarding three new writers each month with a full scholarship to the Writers Boot Camp Online Professional Membership (worth $5,000 in coursework).  Final Draft, Inc. is proud to support the new Writers Boot Camp Fellowship by providing each scholarship recipient a copy of FINAL DRAFT version 8.

Please note that after December 23rd, 2009, we will no longer offer technical support for FINAL DRAFT version 6 via phone, email or chat. Engineered in 2000-2001, it is obsolete and at the end of its supportable life.

You will still be able to use your version 6 as long as your operating system will run it. And although no live support will be available, you will still be able to find answers to your questions or problems by visiting our comprehensive online knowledge base and interactive troubleshooter. The User Guide in the FINAL DRAFT 6 folder on your hard drive is an excellent resource as well.

Because authorizing version 6 is very much a technical matter, this service will also be discontinued on December 23rd. You will still be able to run the program in full mode on an unauthorized computer as long as the CD is in the drive when the program is launched. Once the program is open the CD can be removed. You will still have every program command and feature available to you, the same as the day you bought it. The only difference will be if your computer is not authorized, you will need to take this one extra step in order to open the application.

We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this might cause you. As always, we wish you the best of luck with your writing and we hope that you continue to make FINAL DRAFT your choice for scriptwriting software. We have many, many exciting things planned for the months and years ahead that writers will enjoy.