Screenwriting : What AI tools do you use to write your content? by John Erwin

John Erwin

What AI tools do you use to write your content?

I just go lambasted by a moderator for promoting an AI service or two. So lets start an honest discussion on what AI tools we use to write our scripts?

Bill McCormick

Grammarly

John Erwin

This is not a promotion quite the opposite. I have just spent 10 USD and 6 hours of my life using NovelAI so you don't have to, its SH!T, I cancelled my subscription already.

Göran Johansson

I have tried ChatGPT so I have realized that AI screenwriting means the dialogue is cliché. The characters are cliché. Everything is cliché. I am so disappointed that in the future I plan to use AI as little as possible for writing. But I can imagine using AI to find a co-writer. Or find a script which includes a scene which I can learn from. Or something else.

Bill McCormick

Göran Johansson I use AI as a proofreader. It catches a lot. It's not as good as a human editor, but when I send it to a human, it saves them a lot of work and allows them to focus on the little stuff that can easily be missed.

Göran Johansson

Agree. I too use AI for such tasks since I translated my latest script into English. And I used AI for making the characters talk differently.

Raymond Zachariasse

Grammarly. And I sometimes bounce off ideas with chat. And translating as I am Dutch and my screenplays are English.

Emilia Maria

I think it's dependent on HOW you use it. If you're using it to write the whole thing? Then that's a nasty move. I may need help with structuring, or how dialogue has been used before in similar shows, or even basic formatting, or asking "am I doing this right?"

I'm new to screenwriting, so I want to make sure it's right before submitting. And to catch out any typo's, or formatting mistakes on my part.

I don't want to send it to an agent to have it thrown back in my face hahah!

Nyongesa Briton

Wow! So people are using AI tools as I'm struggling with my 5 page script.. reading dictionary and 18s books plus paying proofreader editor just for a 5 mins video.

Stephanie O'Leary

I decided to try using ChatGPT to organize my handwritten ideas for an outline, and it's worked surprisingly well. The program does occasionally suggest a direction I wouldn't have thought of myself, but I'm not using it to create my source material.

John Erwin

Well how many cliche's do we see in every film, we can't avoid them. A fireman runs from the burrning building holding a cat. The secret to AI is training it your self it should learn from your feed back. Feed in several hundred pages of your own writing and ChatGPT will adapt to your thinking. Large corporations like Sony will feed their scripts and IP into a dedicated AI platform to generate "cliché" content. After watching Top Gun 2 and F1 a cliché with a pizza and a six pack is entertainment, nothing wrong with that, but Hollywood has forgot it needs to make movies people want to watch. The last feedback I got from a producers was my script was The Handmaid's Tale meets Conan the Barbarian, I should use that as a Logline. Donkey work like Proof Reading and Format checking is AI perfection. A few years back more than I care to remember I helped to save the last 35mm projector in my old home town. This involved a crowbar and the local police force having Newcastle and Sunderland home matches on Saturday afternoon, the last cinema closed replaced by a Multiplex at the local retail park. If anybody has actually seen and used an old 35mm cinema project you can understand why we needed an 8 ton lorry to drive it away(Sounds like a good plot for a movie). To cut a long story short the 35mm projector is still working and supports the Northern England Film Festival every year, just don't ask where it came from. Unless your name is Quentin Tarantino which producer is going to allow the use film stock. Times and technology change, so must we. Luddites to the left of me, jockers to the right, here I am stuck in the middle.

Emilia Maria

I don't use anything it says when it comes to the actual content/material. For clarification. I can't afford a degree or courses right now, so I'm gathering resources (free) online to help me learn. Even the Stage32 courses are WAY out of my budget.

Example: I didn't realise that you only had to capitalise the names ONCE in a script/episode, I was doing it every flipping scene - absolute face palm moment. I now need to edit Episode 1... heavily!!

John Erwin

Don't worry about formatting as long as it looks like it is in a standard format. Download and look at several filmscripts like The God Father, The Shinning or any of the so called great movie scripts, there all f@cking different in format and layout. Its content that counts, story, characters and dialogue. Producers, Directors pay monkeys to edit your script into a format they want.

Emilia Maria

I do look at those scripts, but aren't they the finished product? Like you said, they pay people to edit it into a format they want, which is fine. The way I have googled to find original formats! xD

John Erwin

There isn't one industrial standard for a film script, its not like writing Python code. Same as you don't need the 3 stage or 5 stage plot outline, or the 3C's. I teach photography and I always get the "How do I improve...." question. My answer, just take more photographs, learn by your mistakes. Any professional will look at your script and know instantly if its a hit or a pass. Just write it and move on to the next script. I know one writer who has spent 12 years writing one script, if its not ready in 12 week bin it and move on.

Sallie Olson

I don't use any AI for writing and doubt I ever will because I prefer to support human creators. I *might consider AI for covers, maps, or other book related artwork, but only because every time I hire an artist they seem to do things wrong on purpose so they can charge me extra for "making corrections." It's happened every single time, despite the fact that I am very detailed with the requirements of the project, even providing my own sketches. Some even go so far as to wreck or remove something I approved while in the process of changing something I asked them to change...and then expect me to pay them extra to "put it back." It's ridiculous and annoying and enough to make me consider AI for artwork I can't do myself.

Bill McCormick

Sallie Olson I use AI to create prompts for the characters in my books. Since one is in development for film, being able to give visual guides to some dense text has proved helpful. But I would never use AI to create anything for commercial release.

If you'd like to see some of my mildly NSFW monsters, just ask. I have links.

Debbie Croysdale

I never use AI to write cos it’s my passion & I’d not give over to a person let alone a Bot. Don’t knock it though, has its uses EG Several thousand script submissions & remit is a certain genre, budget & story must haves . AI finds remit in hours over days of human eyeball reading.

John Erwin

If no one connects AI to the air lock doors or the launch codes to the nuclear deterrent we should be ok.

Arthur Charpentier

@John Erwin, believe me, you can plan dozens of large-scale terrorist attacks using ii, if you implement it in harmless industries and services. I came to this conclusion while working on my STOLEN project. I would rather connect ii to a nuclear weapon than to my car, washing machine, and toilet. Keep ii away from surgical robots, fertilizers, and animal feed.

CJ Walley

I don't use AI for writing itself, but I have built a GPT specifically for brainstorming screenwriting ideas that you can use here

Stephanie O'Leary

CJ Walley, I don't have time to fully explore your link at the moment, but as noted above, I've just started using A.I. to help me organize handwritten notes into an outline. I look forward to learning more about your system - thanks for sharing!

John Erwin

CJ Walley NICE

Sallie Olson

Bill McCormick I'd love to see your creations!

Bill McCormick

Sallie Olson Here you go. There are two pages of them, and I swap some out from time to time to keep things fresh. https://billmcscifi.com/2pics.html

Marcel Nault Jr.

ChatGPT and Perplexity. Grok and the other platforms are not reliable enough.

Sallie Olson

Bill McCormick I see I could spend days in your website and not see it all. LOL! But I did jump on a copy of The Brittle Riders! :)

Bill McCormick

Sallie Olson I'm glad you found it. Enjoy the book and, if you can, please leave a review somewhere, even if you don't like it.

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