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Friday, November 03, 2006
No, not those polls. Stewart McKie polled (mostly) working screenwriters. And he found the following:
Screenwriting programs -- have used:
84% have used Final Draft
36% Movie Magic Screenwriter
30% Microsoft Word Add-Ins
16% Celtx
12% Montage
12% Sophocles
Preferred:
58% prefer Final Draft
24% prefer MS Word Add-Ins
22% prefer MMS
8% prefer Montage
6% prefer Sophocles
2% prefer Celtx
You can find more information out at his site, ScreenSoft.
Some of the numbers seem a little wonky, I'm assuming because 26% of those polled were not writers but "in other film industry roles." By wonky I mean that 25% of respondents have never used Script Revisions. I suspect those 26% and 25% are mostly the same people -- development execs who use Final Draft to read scripts they've been emailed, or production designers who want to make notes on scripts. I'd like to see which programs are preferred by (only) professional writers (including writer-directors).
It would also be interesting to see (a) what percentage of writers are on Mac vs. Windows (I s'pect over 50%), and how the Final Draft v. MMS war compares on the Mac front vs. the Windows front. I s'pect the Final Draft numbers are even higher on Mac, and MMS scores relatively better on Windows.
Interesting to see there are actually people who prefer Montage, considering it is a new release which as yet does not have the ability to mark revisions. That bodes well for the program.
Would someone tell me what a Microsoft Word Add-In is? Is it like a style sheet on HGH?
1 Comments:
Maybe it's moribund because the tools do the job. There are still jobs for which the brick is the perfect building material, and aside from some minor efficiencies in ovens, and possibly slightly improved formulae for the clay, a brick is still a brick.
However, I was surprised to see how few screenwriters use MMS. I was under the impression it was about equal with FD.By
Alex Epstein, at 10:04 AM
Morgan le Fay--
King Arthur's lover and nemesis
--was a teenage girl once...
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