Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Celtx 1.0 Now Available For Free Download!

After 4 years, 1,000,000 downloads, 20 languages, 160 countries, and 250,000 very active users like you, we're thrilled to announce that Celtx 1.0 has arrived. With 1.0, Celtx is now truly the world's first full-featured, all-in-one media pre-production software. And, like every other version before it, you can download Celtx 1.0 for free at www.celtx.com.

We've added some new features and innovations to 1.0 that we think you'll find useful and enjoy, like:

Adapt To - a single click now converts a fully formatted script of one type into a fully formatted script of another - for example a Stageplay to a Screenplay - displaying instantly the multi-media potential of your work.

Comic Book - a new editor to write properly formatted Comic Books, and a common framework for collaboration between writer and artist.

iPhone - now view your Celtx projects from just about anywhere with a display optimized for your iPhone.

Catalogs - a new organization and searchable dashboard view of all your story's elements and production items.

Sidebar - annotate and break down each scene with notes, media (images, audio, and video clips), and production items through an easy to manage, thoroughly upgraded new sidebar.

Project Scheduling - has been vastly upgraded to fully integrate with the script breakdown and provide a Call Sheet and a host of new shooting reports.

Storyboarding - as requested, you can now choose from a variety of ways to view and manage your images, create a storyboard outline based on your script, and add shot descriptions to each image.

I don't know how they plan to make money giving away software. And I don't know anyone professional who uses it. But if you're a n00b, why spend $150 for Final Draft 7 when you can download Celtx for free? You can always use Final Draft when someone buys you a copy.

Labels: software

4:18 PM

13 Comments:

Their hope may be that if they give it away at first it might catch on and lead to actual working writers using it. I don't know whether they have any chance of putting a dent in Final Draft, but hey, free.

By  Michael, at 6:51 PM  

I still don't like it, and they didn't fix its core problems - incorrect pagination, the requirement to load your script in "formatted" mode to see the correct page count and appearance of the script so far, no interface customization (it's much too clunky as-is), no page view, horrible copied text formatting (and vice versa - copying a celtx script to word or Final Draft), and no ability to add or edit elements.

If you're a screenwriter, 150 hippos for Final Draft or Movie Magic Screenwriter isn't a big deal. And yes, they work much better.
Celtx is good if you're a newby, but there's hardly any reason to stick with it for the long run, and I prefer getting used to long-term applications (like Final Draft or Movie Magic).

By  Anonymous, at 7:23 PM  

I actually used this program up until a week ago when I bit the bullet and bought Final Draft. Celtx is a good program, but I found it too limiting as a TV writer... For example, they do not have an element that properly formats Beginning of Act/End of Acts. They also do not have a simple text feature so that you can do it yourself.

Another problem I had, was that I could not start a new act on the next page. The program does not let you enter down to the next page without filling it with actual text.

By  Dan In LA, at 7:39 PM  

Celtx always felt like an integrated development environment (IDE), something a coder would feel very comfortable with, rather than a specialized word processor.

It also doesn't seem to know what it wants to be. It's rarely a good idea to write one program to do many unrelated tasks, which Celtx does. What's better is to have many programs, one for each task, so that it can do all of them well rather than none of them.

Also as far as branding goes, that's a pretty terrible name. When you think about Final Draft, you instinctively know what it does. It's marketing itself to you right from the get-go. But this...free or not, it's got work to do.

By  Paul William Tenny, at 8:29 PM  

I just dropped $175 on the new Movie Magic and love it.
I never got into this software when I tried it a few years back.

JDC

By  Unknown, at 8:30 PM  

Huh. I'm the outlier. I've got Final Draft, but I much prefer working in Celtx. Partly that's because it's easier for me to push a private project up to the server and then pull it down on another box when I need to work on it, but I think @paul might have hit the nail on the head: it feels like an IDE. That just feels like home for me.

I still finish up my scripts in FD because it does a much better job of formatting, not to mention all the available templates for shows I need to spec. I haven't had a chance to try out the new version's formatting yet, but I'm going to guess it's still not good enough. But no matter where I finish, for just sitting down and writing I prefer Celtx.

@brk, apparently they've added the ability to insert a line break in version 1.0.

By  R.A. Porter, at 9:58 PM  

I started with Sophocles, which I really loved, especially with their last release. Unfortunately, no one else was using it and eventually someone did buy me Final Draft and, although it took me somewhat longer to get comfortable with it, I now like it almost as much.
The thing I miss about Sophocles is the analytical tools--Sophocles can generate a nice relationship chart between the characters and allows you to keep notes on individual characters, which is particularly useful for pilot work.

By  OutOfContext, at 10:35 AM  

I'm not sure I think Celtx intends to make money, at least not by being sold. Does Open Office make money? I'm not sure, but if they do, Celtx probably wants to do so in the same manner.

Anyway, I wanted to post this. Haven't used it yet, but thought it looked interesting.

www.zhura.com

By  Andy M., at 2:30 PM  

Disclosure: the CELTX folks bought me food and drinks at the last CS Expo.
I like the idea of Celtx. If you look at it as a holistic system, it beats MM or Final Draft. Celtx allows tons of notes to be attached to each script element: location, pics of props, even sounds. It allows distant writers to collaborate without dropping a lot of money.
However, until they make it possible to open a Final Draft or MM script with Celtx, or vice versa, it's gonna be a novelty for a lot of writers.

They're very bright folks: they'll get things ironed-out.

By  Jeff Pulice, at 11:35 AM  

The way I figure it is this: most of the world's commerce is now fully dependent on free software. Without it, the Internet would pretty much grind to a halt. And that's open source software with very loose control from the top.

Celtx takes advantage of all that development - it's actually a highly customized version of Mozilla - AND has a team of dedicated engineers who all want to create a great product. I have a lot of confidence that they'll surpass FD and MM within a few years.

By  R.A. Porter, at 11:44 AM  

I haven't played with Celtx much, but if the storyboard feature is as good as the main text module (which is adequate, but not great) I'll be using it for the storyboard module at the very least. "Adequate, but not great" is more than good enough for my storyboarding needs, and better than any other options I've found.

I agree with the point about the lame brand name.

By  Unknown, at 7:23 AM  

Celtx is okay, it has its flaws, but so does everything. I really liked http://www.scripped.com though over all. It doesn't have the budgetting stuff of Movie Magic but damned is it sleek and sexy. It's also free as well.

By  The Prince, at 1:27 PM  

Scripped.com - Free Screenwriting Software - Let's see if that link worked. I really should preview.

By  The Prince, at 1:30 PM  

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