Final Draft 7 for Mac and PC

Final Draft has always been the industry standard scriptwriting programme and with the release of version 7 that is not about to change. Since it’s first release back in 1991 Final Draft made a big impact in scriptwriting circles and over the years it has become the professionals choice with Hollywood types such as Tom Hanks and Oliver Stone favouring the programme, blockbusters such as Cold Mountain, American Beauty, Armageddon, As Good As It Gets, The Talented Mr Ripley and even The Simpsons are all fine examples of feature films and TV written in Final Draft.

Scriptwriting requires concentration, your mind needs to be free of any other distractions so your creative juices can flow, Final Draft allows this to happen as it’s interface is clean and uncluttered, add this to the automation of Final Draft and you have a winning formula for writing scripts. By automation I mean automatic centre justification when typing the character name, then upon hitting the return key, automatic justification for the characters dialogue, then every time the return key is pressed Final Draft intelligently puts the flashing I-beam (insertion point) in the correct place and if by chance you want to change from typing dialogue or character names you simply hit return a second time and you will be faced with a drop-down menu with options for: General, Action, Scene Heading etc.

dictionary windowAlthough Final Draft is an American programme, the writers haven’t forgotten about us Brits, Final Draft has a UK dictionary as well as USA and the script templates include all the British soaps and dramas as well as British film and drama formats, of course if you fancy writing the next series for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, well the template for that one and every other American TV show is there too.

Learning Final Draft is easy, although it is a very powerful package with all the functions and features you would expect from a high end professional application like this, it’s uncluttered interface is very logically laid out and self explanatory, I found that I didn’t have to bother referring to the manual, just clicking around in the menus and windows soon educates you in the way Final Draft works, having said that the manual isn’t one of those 800 page jobs like some other programmes I could mention, instead it is just 96 pages long and 58 of those are simply tutorials covering things like: Starting Final Draft, Typing a Sample Script, Spell Checking, Ask the Expert, Scene Numbering, Text to Speech, Production Features Overview and many more. The “Getting Started” manual also has an excellent glossary in the back, one that independent filmmakers will find indispensable.

Eastenders templateInstalling Final Draft is a breeze, as most programmes are these days. Operating systems such as Windows XP and Macintosh OSX are optimized to make installation simple, with the Mac it’s simply a case of installing the CD and double clicking on the “Final Draft 7 installer: icon then simply click install after choosing the hard drive destination, I’d recommend installing Final Draft in the default Applications folder. For Windows XP things are pretty much the same, if you have the “CD Auto-Play” feature switched on you simply double click the “Install Final Draft” icon then click “Next” and either accept the default destination folder or navigate to another one, again the default will be fine in most instances.

If you are already using a previous version of Final Draft (5 or 6 for example) I’m sure you will want to know what the differences are, well I have to say this latest version has some pretty neat features lined up, allow me to go through them.

Firstly I will set your minds at rest by saying that any script written in versions 5 or 6 can be opened in version 7, also unlike previous versions, in version 7 the CD will no longer unlock the programme if the computer is not activated, remember you can have 2 computers activated simultaneously so if you work in the field with a laptop as well as at home with your desktop, you won’t have any problems. For those new to Final Draft “Activation” is a simple process that authenticates the licensed Final Draft user. The process verifies that the serial number is legitimate and has not been activated on more systems than the user licence allows. You must activate the programme within 15 days of the installation or the programme will stop working until you do.

Ask the expertHere is a list of some of the new features taken directly from the manual:

Panels: The Old Scene Navigator feature has been expanded to include the ability to type summaries or notes on the “back” of the Index Cards. Multiple views of the script, Navigator, Summary Cards and Index Cards are available.

All of the commands related to Panels are contained in the View Menu.

Tagger: Tagger is a separate application included and installed with Final Draft 7 that enables you to break down a Final Draft script into it’s various elements (components) and then export the results into various movie scheduling and breakdown programmes.

Ask The Expert: Besides scriptwriting hints from Syd Field, it now includes information about writing for television and theatre. It also contains the Creative Handbook and a number of sample contracts from the Writers Guild of America, west.

Elements windowUnlike some cheaper scriptwriting packages where a programmer simply wrote a couple of pages of line-command to run on top of an existing programme like Microsoft Word, Final Draft is a full featured word processor that is specifically designed for writing movies, TV programmes and even stage plays, basically, it combines powerful word processing with screenplay formatting intelligence, which allows the writer to concentrate on what is been written instead of how it appears on the page.

To make entering the text easy, Final Draft uses the Tab and Enter keys (Windows), or the Tab and Return keys (Macintosh), to perform most of the formatting functions specific to scriptwriting. These keys are supplemented by the use of a number of special element shortcuts and keystroke micros. Once you have learned the basic key commands, you will have all the tools necessary to quickly and intuitively write a script in the correct format – which the entertainment industry requires. There are several methods that you can choose to perform most of the functions in Final Draft. This gives you the flexibility to choose the method that best fits your writing style.

TV templatesOf course the best way to learn Final Draft is simply to get writing. I would recommend going through the tutorials in the “Getting Started” guide that comes in the box. The tutorials are beautifully laid out and even if you did them all in one sitting it shouldn’t take more than 2 hours or so. This will make you very fluent and confident with Final Draft, then the only limits will be your creativity and imagination.

Other features:

Script Compare is a great little feature as it is often useful to see the differences between different versions of a script; this easily allows you to see the differences from one file to the next.

Format Assistant will come in very handy once you have finished your script, it checks your script thoroughly for common mistakes such as formatting errors like missing dialogue, extra spaces, carriage returns and blank elements etc. When you have been working on a script for weeks at a time you can’t always see the forest for the trees so the "Format Assistant" will simply bring these things to your attention and automatically correct them.

Characters windowScriptNotes uses pop-up windows to hold ideas, notes, suggestions, scene fragments and anything else you think is important, without taking up valuable screen space.

CollaboWriter is an absolute must if you are working on a script with someone else. It allows you to write, edit and discuss the script with your collaborator in real time over the Internet.

Text to Speech, this is my absolute favourite, remember those screenwriting classes where a group of you would have to sit in a circle and have a script reading? well not anymore because Final Draft can do the script reading for you, admittedly the computer voices are not terribly good actors and they certainly lack the passion of Uma Thurman and Steve Buscemi, but the feature is certainly enough to give you a good idea if your dialogue is flowing and natural. The Text to Speech function allows you to assign different voices to each character, male, female, young or old, there are dozens of preset character names in the Text to Speech set-up window and you can even change the parameters of each voice i.e. to speak fast, slow, or with a deep voice or high pitched voice, just think Ving Rhames and Joe Pesci here ;) I’m sure you will have great fun with this one.

Actors windowPanels allow the script to be viewed in different, well, Panels – Script view, Index card view and Navigator view. The Index card view is particularly useful, as Syd Field will tell you; it means you can view the summery cards. There is one card for each scene, on the top line of each card are the scenes heading, scene number (if any) and the page number. Underneath this you can enter your text i.e. development ideas, notes, sequence or act markers, comments, locations or anything else you feel is relevant to the script.

All in all, Final Draft version 7 is the most complete scriptwriting package I have ever come across, the programme writers have left no stone unturned and it’s obvious that they communicate with Hollywood (and other) scriptwriters to fine tune the programme to the needs of professional entertainment industry screenwriters.

The Final Draft website www.finaldraft.com is a great place if you do get stuck (which I seriously doubt as the programme is so easy to use) with technical help online as well as the media room, tips and articles and of course the script registry, check it out.

With a list price of £179.75 or Online price of £149.95 (ex VAT and shipping) I find it very difficult to fault this programme, which is why I am awarding it a 5 star rating.

Rating: 5 stars

If you want to find out more information about Final Draft or to purchase a copy here in the UK contact Rinaldo or Joanna at the Screenwriters Store in London on 020 7261 1908 or go to their website at www.screenwriterstore.co.uk