Hello everybody, I'm a director and a screenwriter.
When it comes to writing, I'm a procrastinator, think and rethink, plot, and beat the hell out of a story before I start writing. Also, English is my second language, and I'm not prolific at all. I really need to love a story to decide to write it. I wrote several features, one of which got produced and won Best Screenplay at an International Festival. Two others got optioned, and I have a TV series touring major productions in town. This is not to brag, just to say that I'm not a novice, but still, I have a lot to learn and I love when I experience something new.
And today, I have an experience to share, and I'm wondering if anybody had the same experience as me or... it is just a series of coincidences.
Is there anybody out there that is using the Screenwriting software Causality from Hollywood Camera Work?
I started beta testing it a couple of years ago and, although I liked the premise, I didn't really use it much.
I did use it to re-structure a script I was working on, but... that was it. I soon got back to the cozy comfort of that glorified typing machine called Final Draft (great professional software but still mostly a typewriter with a notepad).
Over Christmas vacation, I woke up one day with an idea for a scene and the hope that would work for a longer story... I didn't have my cards or my notebook (yes, I still handwrite a lot, especially when I'm brainstorming), so I turned on my laptop, and there was a notification of an update for Causality.
3 days later, I wrote 80 pages! 6 days later, I sent the first draft to some trusted readers and nobody believed was a first draft. Now, of course, is business as usual with many re-writes but there was something in the way that I was working (not only writing but creating). So I started a new script and I had to stop at page 30 in 2 days because I didn' have more time but, again, I would be far more ahead if it wasn't for external forces.
Again, is anybody working with this software? What's your experience?
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Simone Bartesaghi I started using the software in January but learned about it last year sometime. It takes a few weeks to get used to but love the way it makes it easy to write scripts. I wrote my 70-page pilot series in 7 days plus the customer service is amazing. Per Holmes lives in Italy and he always helps me with the program if I get stuck. The fact you can do individual episodes and save all the index cards is amazing, they are always upgrading. I asked them to add a feature and in less than two weeks the feature was added. Always good. Thanks for chiming in and welcome to the platform :)
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Simone Bartesaghi you're not. I do the same things. Maybe not a checklist but I definitely create notes and we've got detailed shot descriptions. I'm lucky since my DP is my partner and we can figure blocking together even before we get on set.
But it definitely helps being organized and it saves so much time on set.
Last summer we wanted to shoot a proof of concept pilot for a TV show which would not have been possible to do in the two days we had the talent for unless we were prepared like crazy. So we scouted all the locations in advance and tried every shot with a phone, made notes and when we were prepping I took all of that into account. In the end we stuck to the plan and got everything we needed.
But I do have some help on set when we shoot. There's a guy a PA or a CA, what ever you want to call him, he actually keeps track of the documentation and nots. So any moment when we're shooting I ask him if I wrote any special nots down or if we're getting what I wrote done and he can tell me where we are. Of course he makes detailed notes of things that we change for post and it works out great.