Greetings dear readers (and you less expensive ones). For the benefit of those who don’t know me, as I’m a relative newcomer to OVFM, my name is Lee, the writer/director of the multi-award winning film “Writers Block”, and the big ugly brute in black who is usually blocking the view of short people at the club meetings. For those of you who do know me, I hope the nightmares have stopped now.
Anyhoo, I write this article to raise awareness of a wonderful piece of software that maybe of some benefit to the scriptwriters of OVFM, which enables one to create a professional looking, multifunctional script. This fantastic little programme is called Celtx (pronounced either Kell-tex or Sell-tex as is your wont) and best of all it is FREE!! (that got your attention didn’t it?)
So, what can Celtx do? What can’t it do? Well, it can’t cook, fly to the moon or make you more attractive to women (in my experience at least) but it does make the whole scriptwriting process a much easier one. First off, it automatically formats your script to whichever medium you are writing film (eg: film, TV, radio, stage play, etc.) which spares you the time and agony of setting up indents and markers in Word.
Lengthy character descriptions in your main script can be removed as there is a separate function to create a complete character biography – which also applies to props, scenery, settings, etc. You can create a storyboard which can be viewed as a slideshow, while a newly added sketch feature allows you to lay out the blocking for each shot/scene.
Want to add small computerised Post-It notes to the script? You can do that. Need to work out your shooting schedule or keep a record of your cast and crew? You can do that too. And while you can export your scripts in PDF format for others to read, if they also have Celtx you can share the entire project – storyboards, notes and all – with them.
It may sound too good to be true but trust me it isn’t. Granted, many of projects created by OVFM may not require the use of all of the features Celtx has to offer but they are certainly great to have regardless. And even if it is used solely for scriptwriting this remains an indispensable programme to have at your disposal, which has been endorsed by no less an august organisation than the BBC!
Now the important bit: where to get hold of this miracle software. That’s easy: it’s free to download at www.celtx.com (although you will need to sign up to the site first but that too is FREE!) where you will also find plenty of information about the software and its many functions.
Thanks for reading and I hope this information has been of some use to you.
LEE RELPH
yeah, celtx is great. . I’ve found a Microsoft Word screenplay template which I use a lot.
I was recommended to celtx by a friend. It is a very useful tool and I often use it to jot down ideas as they develop and then go back and add to them later with a view to making films once I have developed the idea sufficiently. If only I had more time in my day!