Is this really your final draft?

Upon my arrival home this fine San Francisco evening, my upgrade version of Final Draft was awaiting me in my mailbox. For those of you that don't know, Final Draft is the "professional scriptwriting software." Logic states that just by using it I am a professional, right? This is the program that is used by most industry professionals writing for movies and television in Hollywood today. Being that I haven't got a chance to play around with it yet, I can't tell you how much I like or dislike this version (8.0) over the previous (7.0). I just wanted to share my excitement about coming home to a new toy!!

Speaking of Final Draft, they announced this week that they are working on an application for the soon-to-be ubiquitous Ipad.

AND... speaking of screenplays, I am reading Good Will Hunting with Inglorious Basterds next on my book-shelf.

-b

It puts the pen to the paper.

When you get right down to it, I am a lazy procrastinating complacent bastard. Okay, the bastard part isn't true but the rest is. I am well past the stage of denial when it comes to this issue. This is really coming into play with life post film school. There are no deadlines or someone standing over you to make sure you continue on down this path you have chosen. That path for me is writing and directing. To partially combat this laziness o' mine, I have started a writing group of classmates and prior alumni.

The whole point of this group is to get together and work on your scripts in whatever state of completion they may be in. Be it one sentence pitch, one paragraph pitch, or final draft. You read your work in a round-robin format and then everyone tears it apart hoping to make it better. This structure helps me stay on target as I don't want to shame myself for showing up without anything new. That and it will hopefully turn my scripts from drivel to greatness. I will introduce the group to you, the reader, at a later date.

Our third meeting is this Saturday and I have a rough draft of my next short for the ready. This project is still in the gestational phase. It's all zygotes and what not. I will do a few more drafts and then move on to the next phase of pre-production, of which there are many. It's not to say I don't enjoy screenwriting. I really do. It's solitary and quite fun honestly. I need to to do it more often. For those of you that are dying to know, I use the Final Draft program on my fancy-dancy MacBook. (notice the absence of the word "pro" after Macbook) *insert sadface here*

Apart from procrastinating, I also partake in other activities while I should be working on my scripts. Activities such as this blog. And with that I am leaving you with an interesting article about screenwriting in Hollywood. It's a juicy read.
-b

Brave New World

Dear friends and family at SFSDF,

I've decided to start seeing other people. It's not you, it's me...

While maintaining the priceless relationships that I've created with both the staff and alumni from the San Francisco School for Digital Filmmaking, I've decided it would be both healthy and worthwhile to start branching out into different communities of filmmakers in and around San Francisco. Staring locally, there is a network of filmmakers in my neighborhood of Bernal Heights centered around the Bernal Heights Outdoor Cinema. Tonight they are have a screening and meet/greet with local filmmakers at the newly renovated Bernal Heights Library. This is the first of their quarterly screenings and I am going to attend. The above flyer is for the event. After that, maybe start attending meetings for the San Francisco Film Society. Attend local film festivals. Submit my work to local film festivals. I really don't know actually. I'm just kinda making this up as I go as there really isn't a blue-print for what one should do post film school. If you know of one, please send it my way.

-b

*insert tampon joke here* -or- OMG YOU GUYS!!! THE IPAD IS COMING!!

The only thing I really know about the ipad is that I was really tired of hearing about it leading up to the announcement of it. So let's talk more about it, right? Right? Who's with me?

*crickets*

There have been some really cool filmmaking apps that have been released for the iphone, but that isn't what I am talking about now, BUT I will talk about at a later date. Excited?!?! As you should be. Both with that and my run-on sentence that started this paragraph. What I am covering today is how the ipad will help the filmmaker. Being that I still have trouble referring to myself as a filmmaker, I am going to pass the torch to to some much smarter and more experienced folks than me in the art of filmmaking and the aid of an ipad. (Yes that's correct, I am linking other blog entries to my blog. How lazy is that?)

Screenwriter extraordinaire John August on the ipad and screenwriting.

Fresh HDV and the ipad and creative types.

Enjoy.
-b