Final Draft 6 [OLD VERSION]

Other products by Final Draft, Inc.

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000060OFC
• Date first available at Amazon.com: January 31, 2002
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #5,330 in Software (See Bestsellers in Software)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #15 in	Software > Education & Reference > Script & Screenwriting
  #25 in	Software > Home & Hobbies > Movies & Television
  #34 in	Software > Education & Reference > Writing & Literature

• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Review
In a business that's all about buzz, the latest version of Final Draft should enjoy plenty of the good kind. Final Draft 6.0 has kept what works, and added new features that guarantee this scriptwriting software will retain its spot in the limelight. It still handles the myriad technical details of scriptwriting automatically--character names are indented properly, scene headings are capitalized, and the default font is the industry standard 12-point Courier, a holdover from typewriter days. The entertainment industry is surprisingly stuffy when it comes to screenplay formatting and, when properly used, Final Draft can at least ensure your script will look great.

The latest version of Final Draft is designed for Windows XP and carbonized for Mac OS X, but it worked fine on the Windows 98 system we tested it on. A new touch freelancers will appreciate is the ability to save in Adobe PDF format, so scripts can be sent to folks who don't own this software. New cosmetics include a more colorful toolbar, darker font that matches Mac and Windows systems and looks better in print, and bigger windows for the ScriptNotes feature. System enhancements include a smart drag and drop, which automatically adds formatting elements when you move bits of your script. Our favorite new addition is Ask the Expert, a blackboard that writers can visit to refresh themselves on basics like characterization and story arc. It's like a screenwriting class without the has-been teacher and the "I'm better than Spielberg" classmates.

A couple of annoyances: you must "authorize" your system to use Final Draft 6.0 without the CD-ROM. Fortunately there are two authorizations, so you can, for example, use the program on both a desktop and laptop. Also, the much-touted script templates are nearly impossible to find (go to "File," click "New"--we just saved you 15 minutes), and they are not copies of actual scripts but two- to three-page parodies of TV shows, done in what we assume is the specific format for the show. They're worth reading just for laughs, but since the X-Files template still had Mulder listed as a character, we don't think they're 100 percent up to date. --Anne Erickson

Amazon.com Product Description
Designed for scriptwriting, Final Draft 6 software is favored by award-winning film, stage, and television writers alike. It combines word processing with industry-standard script formatting, a robust tools suite, and an improved interface.

Key among Final Draft 6's bevy of features is its complete cross-platform compatibility with Microsoft Windows and Mac, letting you work seamlessly on both platforms. Its industry-standard formatting automatically creates, edits, and inserts required script cues. The SmartType tool remembers and completes names, scene headings, transitions, and locations. Final Draft's Format Assistant identifies script-formatting errors and any inconsistencies, while a 120,000-word spell checker autocorrects spelling errors. And when it's time for rewrites, the Scene Navigator reformats your script as you write. Other tools include script suggestions that appear as pop-up windows, scene bookmarks, and outline or index-card scene views. You can even assign a voice to each character and your text turns to speech for a scene reading at your desktop.

Exclusive to Final Draft 6 is an online script registration process that lets you register and submit your screenplay directly to the Writers Guild of America. So, when your script makes it into production, use Final Draft 6 to revise and number scenes, generate reports, and export your script to other creative, editing, scheduling, and budgeting programs.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

70 of 71 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Big time saver and easy to use., July 8, 2002

By	S Smyth (Belfast, Co Antrim United Kingdom) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The use of a script formatting programme such as Final Draft 6.0 is a bit of an indulgence if you simply want to generate a decent looking piece of work. Setting up a Word template and a set of paragraph styles will do the job very adequately. Beats a Selectric anyway.

What Final Draft 6.0 is all about, is the automatic adjustment of a script's format so that when re-writes or revisions are made, the document will be appropriately modified.

For example, working with a Word template and you have included the (more) and Joe Blow ( continued) tags, to get the dialogue across a page-break, these will remain in place even if they are not required after an edit or an addition or a rearrangement of scenes. Final Draft 6.0 will delete or include these tags as you proceed. And with line spacings kept as they should be.

Final Draft 6.0's other big feature is its analysis capability. So if Harlan Ellison and Bll Shatner had been running this application when Bill was reading through `The City on the Edge of Forever' script at Harlan's house, Bill could have, with a click or two of the mouse, discovered how many lines that he and Leonard Nimoy had between them and saved a lot of reading and mental arithmetic time. Which is what Final Draft is all about for the serious or professional writer. The saving of time when you need to know what,where, and how much of, a script contains, and the avoidance of a lot of tiresome manual tweaking.

At its most basic, Final Draft, will dispense with the need for a multitude of keystrokes in a word processor, since mostly the tab and enter keys are used. Most of these formatters use this approach in one way or another.

A file can be saved as an RTF ( rich text format ) for delivery to those not running Final Draft, and you can also export a script to PDF for peace of mind, if you want others to see and print the script as you do. Another useful feature is the ability to take text created in a Word template and copy and paste it into Final Draft for it to apply the correct text styles to the, scene-heading, dialogue, parenthetical, and action sections, etc. This means that you don't have to worry about re-doing your pre-Final Draft scripts in Final Draft.

There are cheaper options to Final Draft 6.0, but I have found them to be either lacking in features or simply confusing and awkward to use. More time being wasted getting one's head around their idiosyncrasies, than doing anything useful.

The documentation for Final Draft 6.0 is the best of all the options that I've seen and they have even gone to the bother of creating their own font - Courier Final Draft. This font is different to Courier New 12 Pt in Word, etc. At high zoom levels, on screen, it looks good and beefy, not thin and weedy like Courier New 12 Pt . It also prints much more strongly making your script more easily readable. It's a fair simulation of a type written page. Other fonts can be substituted, but it's highly recommended that you stick to Courier to be consistent with expectations. Courier Final Draft also looks pretty much the same on PCs and Macs.

Final Draft 6.0 won't write you a better script, but it will allow you to keep your mind on the job.

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Like it a lot..., November 14, 2002

By	L. Massaar "Len Massaar" (Vancouver, WA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Please note that this is advertised as being ok for win 95 platform; all the literature for loading/install plugged this at win 98 and above only.

I still haven't been able to enable the text-to-speech option, despite having re-installed the package several times on my laptop. But this is fairly minor and will no-doubt be solved once I contact their support people (or poke around their web site).

Surprisingly, the whole package doesn't take-up much space either. And my laptop is old (max 1.5G), so that's a consideration.

The package itself is very reminiscent of MS Word. The philosophy behind the design of this tool is to minimize keystrokes... to that end, you get-by simply by using the Tab and Enter keys (in a Win environment anyway) to let it know what it is you want to do.

Thereafter, you use the keyboard to outline your action, dialogue etc. It is clever enough to remember character names (so, as you begin to type someone's name, it makes a suggestion as to who it may be or provides a list from which you're invited to make a selection); ditto with the locations of a scene.

The package even boasts reports & stats surrounding your script... it'll therefore tell you that character X only occupies Y% of the dialogue and that's always in one of the following locations while interacting with another character Z.

You can tile your scenes across the screen (as though they were written on cards) and move the cards around (and, if dealing with a final Production script, re-number the scenes and so-on too).

Easy to learn, easy to use. You can do all of it yourself with the right templates in something like MS Word, but the cost is well-worth the time it saves and the speedy manner in which it captures your creativity (instead of stifling it by tedious formatting considerations you have to remember).

I have no experience of using a Mac, so can't comment on this exact same package being used on that platform.

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Final Draft 6 Needs Revision, March 18, 2003

By	Todd Krainin (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Even though it remains the Hollywood standard, Final Draft 6 leaves a lot to be desired. For lack of a decent alternative, I've used this application for the better part of a decade, and it remains clumsy to use and well behind the curve of technology.

The big issue: Onscreen text looks atrocious. After a year on the market, Final Draft 6 still doesn't use Mac OS X's technology to render beautiful anti-aliased text. Third-party fixes, like Silk, work only halfway to solve Final Draft's shortcomings. But should an application that costs $ need fixing at all? Unacceptable.

And beware of WYSIWYDG, or "What You See Is What You Don't Get." You might find the perfect font in the Font Menu, but good luck applying it to your screenplay. Worse, there are occasional text hiccups, where the text-rendering is garbled and screen redrawing is skewed.

'Authorization' remains a nuisance, too. (Bet you didn't remember to 'deauthorize'before a system reinstall or upgrade.) I know of no other software that requires such an unwieldy process just to stay running smoothly.

Final Draft 6 is still better than a typewriter or a standard word processor for writing scripts, but not by much. Considering the steep price, maybe it's time to revisit the competition.