I finally decided for a number of reasons that my printer was occupying valuable desk real estate, so it's been banished yet again to the storage closet.
Do you print your own scripts at various stages of writing and development ?
Or is everything pretty much all PDFs until or unless you need a hard copy ?
I'm thinking of printing some for a table read but I'll just do that at FedEx/Kinko's since it'll be five or ten copies ...
And of course any time we make revisions which is like every five minutes (until or unless a script gets locked haha), then the printed copies go right into the recycle bin.
So the printer is gone, and that lovely desk real estate is now being occupied by a tray of chips and dip.
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Mostly PDF's until I need a hard copy. Recently shredded some early versions to make room for the current version in the folders on my desk. I tend to be analogue when it comes to reading a final draft... I like to read (and scribble on) the hard copy.
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There is nothing like holding a script in your hand and making notes in the margins. But sadly I don't think I've printed out a script in 3 or 4 years!
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I wait off on printing a hard copy until I know I have a real usable draft to go through and show to people. Maybe the third or fourth draft (fingers crossed! Haha)
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@Daniel Yes I booted my cumbersome inkjet printer out around 7 years ago. Desk space? LOL It occupied real estate square inches in a one bed apartment and was too big for my desk so had its own side table. It tended to puff and chug and spit out extras or not produce at all on days when I had guests like some jealous pet. One morning when I was hung over it turned into fax mode and started sending messages albeit I hadn’t punched in any numbers. Paranoid it was sucking them off my desktop friends contact list I put it on the skip, carefully dodging the CCTV by the Eco friendly waste bins . Everything I do is copied on memory stick and also PDF on desktop but as @Jason says “There’s nothing like a hand held script,” so for table reads I use the public library printer or internet cafe. I enjoy the freedom of using someone else’s printer without domestic ties . LOL
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I print them. Not at any particular stage. But every script at some point needs to be paper. Then I can scribble on it, make notes, underline and most important, hold something real in my hands.
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Craig D Griffiths yes I can see that the printed copy is definitely still holding some magic for a number of writers and I'm glad to be reminded of how helpful that can be!
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Debbie Croysdale that is hilarious! I see you also have enjoyed a complex relationship with these devices as I have too!
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James Welday yes! Best of great success on that next draft, nice to see you!
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Jason Mirch that's deep, and yet I imagine considering the volume of material you develop, that an industry pro at your level would quickly get buried in paper.
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Ingrid Wren yes, and I'm reminded how much I also enjoy and benefit from marking up a printed copy, we see things that would simply drift past our eyes in a PDF.
And yet, the further I go with polishing current projects, it seems like there's really no good time to print it out in the midst of so many polishes!
Perhaps that time will come soon for my leading projects, and once I plan the table read this spring I'll get over to FedEx/Kinko's and come out of there with a stack of beautiful printed scripts to share with my readers, hoping I don't find a lurking typo!
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I went wireless. My printer sits across the room. It was never on my desk to begin with, but on a separate table or stand sitting very close and connected by a cable. I needed more room, so I had to move it.
I bought a new wireless printer with two trays, one for regular paper, and one for 3-hole punched paper. This way the printer doesn't take up all my space, I can print regular documents anytime, and I can print copies of my screenplays on demand with holes already in the pages.
I usually only print one copy of the initial vomit draft. And that's so I have a copy to quickly refer to and mark up for revisions. All edits after that I do in my screenwriting software.
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I used to print scripts. Now, I use PDF to read scripts and review them.
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I print them when I want to take notes. I can't help noting mistakes in grammar, spelling, and format, so I might as well circle them in red as I go. This goes for my own scripts, too. I find reading them on paper brings new objectivity.
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To save paper, I print 2 pages per page. Small to read, but not impossible. All one side, though. I don't like back/front page turns.
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Myself personally, no. The last couple of film festivals I attended set aside room for filmmakers and screenwriters to leave their business cards and I noticed a lot of screenwriters employing cheap keychain USB's.
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I always start with a hand draft that then gets typed into Final Draft. Once I have a completed digital draft. I'll print out a copy that I will sit down with a week AFTER the draft is done. This allows my brain to pull back a bit from the material.
I then put on my Editor hat and have at.
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@Elaine Haygood that sounds like a really workable and logical set of best practices!
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Mike Boas that is a good point, I need more new objectivity like that and perhaps working from printed scripts at various stages in the process will help; because I am gaining facility with working on two or three projects concurrently, that might help me with compartmentalizing the different projects!
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@AnthonyMoore that sounds ideal, wow! Because I live in a small flat and have reduced most of my supplies and equipment almost to the "digital nomad" level at this juncture, I can only dream of a separate printer stand with two paper trays! Awesome.
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Daniel Stuelpnagel I go all digital for environmental and cost reasons. I export all my screenplays to PDF and then read them on my iPad. I can still mark them up like I normally would but I just use my Apple Pencil instead. And yes...it even edits in red. Works so good for me that I haven't printed a full script in probably 6-7 years.
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@CarltonAllen that is a great way to do it; and I think once we commit to that immersion in paperless, hopefully we develop the focus needed to mark-up and edit in that mode without needing to work through it on paper.
I'm still of two minds on this. But I do think we gain the needed skills, for example some people say that we retain and express better when writing by hand, but I think sufficient time on a keyboard makes it so fluid that I can confidently just type at a blistering pace.
But I still go through many notebooks of handwritten notes lol
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I love that idea Carlton, I love the paper in my hands and sometimes it helps me find errors I wouldn't have on the screen. I like a good combo of both.
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Daniel Stuelpnagel and Michele, I hear where you’re coming from and ultimately it definitely comes down to preference and what’s gonna make you more productive.
A couple other benefits of my iPad approach is when taking notes with the pencil you have unlimited amounts of (digital) paper to use. Also, on the iPad I have access to every script I’m currently working on in one location so when I travel I don’t have to bring reams and reams of paper worth of scripts and notes. And finally, because you can save the PDF WITH the markups on it I can put it side by side on my computer screen when it’s time to add the changes to the script.
Again, it’s about whatever works for YOU to get the project done and where you like it. This is just a peek into my process ;)