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Movie Outline 2.0

Just thought I would share information on this new software I've been trying out...

It's called:

Movie Outline 2.0

This is a pretty basic piece of software and maybe even a little pricey for what it does but I've been using it for a week now and really loving it. Until now, I've been jotting my scene ideas down on whatever is at hand i.e., napkins, notepads, whatever... Then later, I take these pieces of paper and transcribe them into a Word document.

The Word document serves simply as my scene ideas and notes file for whatever screenplay I'm writing. The only problem with this method is organization...

On the current screenplay I'm writing, I've been real disorganized... I've got index cards, scraps of paper, a Word document, etc. etc.

So today I finally copied EVERYTHING for the current screenplay into Movie Outline. Well, to my surprise, I already had 39 scenes... I really didn't know how many I'd had until now because of my total disorganization... I've just been taking all this crap and using it one by one to write my scenes...

Of course these screenwriting programs (I use Movie Magic) call every new slug line a scene so I never use this as a guide...

Anyway, Movie Outline is really nice to use. Fast and easy. Prints out your entire outline. A few more scenes and I will be able to print it out and finish the script fairly easy I think.

What pissed me off though is that once I got 15 scenes created, the demo wouldn't let me add any more scenes! I didn't know that so I went ahead and bought it. Now I'm glad I did...

There are a lot more features. It won't write your story for you though... LOL.

What I like best is the STORY TASK feature. While I'm outlining a scene, if I get an idea, I can create an immediate story task. Once created, it's always there waiting to be completed. When you complete the task, you simply check the radio box to let you know you finished it hence, you have a built in "things to do" list that's always there...

I'll still be writing ideas down on scraps of paper, my notebook, envelopes, etc., but now I can transcribe all this crap into an organized file and then play with the scene order at will. This really will help me because there have been times I came up with great ideas, wrote them down, and then LOST the friggin' paper I wrote it on...

Check it out...

filmy

*NOTE: I don't make anything from you trying or purchasing a copy. I just thought this was finally a nice piece of software that works. The ideas still have to come from YOU.
 
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Thanks for the review, I'll have to try the demo. One of the struggles I always have across a feature-length screenplay is keeping track of a given character's growing/decreasing love/hate/resolve and the scenes that show that arc. Would you say this helps keep track of that sort of thing? Or is it more for keeping major plot points organized?

I currently use Storyview to do something similar. I do like it but looking at Movie Outline it looks a bit more intuitive and simple.
 
cyan said:
Thanks for the review, I'll have to try the demo. One of the struggles I always have across a feature-length screenplay is keeping track of a given character's growing/decreasing love/hate/resolve and the scenes that show that arc. Would you say this helps keep track of that sort of thing? Or is it more for keeping major plot points organized?

I currently use Storyview to do something similar. I do like it but looking at Movie Outline it looks a bit more intuitive and simple.

cyan,

I'm still new at using the program but yes, you can track character arcs... Sort of. First, enter all your scenes into the program. Second, click on the POWER VIEW icon at the top of the program. This opens up PowerView (naturally). From here, you will see the following sections of your outline:

Prologue
Act I
Act II
Turning Point I
Mid Point
Turning Point II
Act III
Denouement

You can see the corresponding scenes of each of these sections. You can also color code and shorten/lengthen the amount of scenes for each section. For a character arc, I would probably code the scene heading as the beginning of a character arc. Or, you could just label the scene that way. Either would work.

As for the sections...

These are basic descriptions of a script/movie as used by Hollywood standards. For those of you (me included) who do not totally buy into the traditional 3 act structure, don't let the labels deter you from the program... All movies have a beginning, middle, and an end... No matter what.

For me, I like the way I can just throw ALL my ideas for scenes (no matter how crappy they are) into the program. From there, I can play around with the order they should be in. I can keep moving them around like I have in the past with 3x5 cards until I get an order I like.

filmy
 
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