Just over two weeks away from our re-scheduled shoot and looking at (not to mention tweaking) the script fairly constantly. A decision was taken early on to look for some writing freeware that offered similar benefits to FinalDraft – not that there’s anything wrong with FinalDraft, there simply wasn’t the money to pay for it.

The first thing to pop up when ‘screenwriting freeware’ was typed into a well known search engine was Celtx. It appeared to be exactly what we were looking for and a copy was quickly downloaded. The user interface is intuitive and it’s got everything you need for writing plays, films or even comic books.

https://www.celtx.com/index.html

Writing the script, however, was just the beginning. When it came to actually planning the shoot Celtx really came into it’s own with it’s brilliant report generators helping to compile props lists, shot lists, storyboards, scene breakdowns, index cards, character profiles – stuff that really helped clarify everything that needed doing before arriving at rehearsal or on set.



Using and learning are easy with online tutorials and support as well as their own YouTube channel showcasing short films and their ‘Seed’ scheme offering support to indie filmakers:

http://www.youtube.com/user/celtx

At one stage I wanted to use an older Mac Powerbook for writing without online distractions and the versions of Celtx on their site were all made for later operating systems. They sent me a direct link to an older version of the software which would work on my Mac. It was a great gesture and I couldn’t have asked for more.