Steve Scifi: 3d animator, music composer and screenwriter in Southampton, United Kingdom.

Hi Shaista, I am looking to consult with a sales agent.

Thank you! I hope down the line, maybe we can work together...Lots of scripts.

Good to know! Welcome Shaista!

Good insights, Joel. I'm on Windows too and built my own machine. It's wonderful having the option to upgrade memory and storage as needed.

I think one other important aspect is memory management within your DAW, so freezing/rendering tracks with a lot of plugins on, keeping an eye on your performance metre, deleting/taking offline plugins you added at one point but aren't using now, using routing/folders to reduce the overall amount of plugins in the project- just good memory management really. Project setup and maintenance in order to preserve computing power is a very important element of film composition.

Hi Joel. I work on a decently powerful PC (Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-10940X CPU @ 3.30GHz 3.31 GHz, 64GB RAM), with Cubase 12. I am able to run enough tracks with multiple plugins per track. My time with Cubase goes back to the Atari ST days! I also had the original Cubase Audio for a PC (8 tracks max but it worked well). When I upgraded to Cubase VST with a Lexicon Studio IO device in the late nineties, I was most disappointed to find the tracks slipping and sliding around timing-wise (ever so slightly but I could hear it). That put me off DAWs for a while until CUBASE 5 which was ok. I didn't record much after that until I recently upgraded to 12. Things have moved on a lot, right now the quality and range of plugins are fantastic!

You're welcome, Connie. It's under the "Tools "tab in Final Draft.

Thanks, Maurice!

You're welcome, Connie Barretta.

Damn! Phillip E. Hardy, "The Real Deal" I'll choose to read this (making a point of not using the word 'must' after the logline webinar...ha ha). So much to read, write & ponder in so little time....#Hamletsyndrome.

Phillip E. Hardy, "The Real Deal" a lot of those points are very true for screenwriting. Thanks for sharing. It's good to get an insight into what should be avoided when writing a script. Lot's of great advice in this post indeed!

Thank you for sharing!

Thanks everybody!

You're welcome, Jessica.

Hey J.M. Gulmire if you have folks that you trust to give you quality feedback then that's a good thing.. And it's true that ultimately it's your project so you have to choose what you will and won't use. I've had feedback that had suggestions with what changes to make. Some I agreed with and some I didn't.

I would love to see an animated feature where the art direction is taken from Ancient Africa. It would be bold, refreshing and stand out amongst most of the other animated features.

I love this mission behind your work, Uchenna Okoye! You should reach out to Cenack, an animator in France who takes inspiration from African history and artwork: https://www.stage32.com/profile/827992/about

Hehe Black Panther. Hope this goes well. Been in animation for a while 2D/3D over at www.wholebitmedia.com. I'm recommending Blender.

I agree with Craig that SciFi can be seen as a setting. My original story was set on 1980's earth had no SciFi aspects at all. Advised that my writing "showed promise" but there was no interest in the story as it was, a journalist friend suggested I set the story somewhere else. So I set it in my first love - SciFi - and that changed everything! My advice is to write your stories... You might find your characters tell you what the setting should be.

@sasha Tomas I would call them Action stories assuming the looming/happening disaster is a significant element of the story.

Leon Fairley Yup, looming disaster is at the heart of it. Action makes sense.

Even if you think your first draft is perfect commonly know as your poop draft You might find something in the rewrite you may have overlooked that doesn't make sense or fit into the script. Rewriting is like having all the puzzle pieces to your puzzle. Now your just trying to figure out what puzzle pieces fit and which ones don't. It's that simple.

It definitely won't be right first time. In all forms of art (as mentioned in an earlier reply), you need to step back. Wait long enough to "fall out of love" with your idea. Then set about reading it again looking for errors. Use Final draft if you have it to assist in this. Best of luck!

Taika Waititi says “I will write a draft and then I will put it away for a year or so, and then within two years or three years I’ll come back and read it. And then I will read it like, two or three times and then I will throw that away and rewrite it from page one, based on the memory of what I read.” Writing the script and then leaving it for a bit, gives you the distance you need to look at your work with more objectivity.

Welcome, Lydia Gagoh . I agree. Onward and upward.

Welcome, Lydia! I've been a teacher (resigned last May to write full time), have worked in broadcasting, but you don't want me singing lol! Good to meet you.

Nice to meet you, Lydia. Glad you're here! I've been a teacher for 21 years. Gotta watch out for those teachers, man.

Welcome! What software do you use to animate with?

Welcome to the community, Rida Ameer.

Amazing :) has to feel so good.

Nice job, Isaac! Excellent work!

Congratulations!

I think that would be fine to put when you submit to a producer, Steve Scifi. It might help you and your project stand out.

Maurice Vaughan Dan MaxXx Thanks very much for your thoughts. I am submitting to the ScreenCraft Sci-Fi & Fantasy Screenwriting Competition today and I'll just thank them for reading. Seems courteous.

You're welcome, Steve Scifi.

One idea is not to write the end last. I don't know if this helps but I write high level ideas first, flesh them out a bit, dwell on it (sometimes for ages), add in specific dialogue, back off, look at the story arc etc etc. In other words the writing is happening in a non-linear fashion, and although I will probably write the end last, it won't be for the first time, it will be tweaking the concepts and dialogue. In this way nothing feels rushed.

Right Colette? I have a couple of readers to go over it first. That's always my next step so I can tweak it. But I def can't produce it myself. Not right now ,so I'll be pitching and subbing to ISA gigs once it's ready.

When I get to page 70 I know all I need to do is go back and revise the dialogue. I move things around if needed but just make the scenes better is where I start. I end up with about 100 -106 pages give or take.

I don't know how people cope without an outline. I have the greatest respect for those that can write successfully without one. I come from a computer programming / system design background, so I need to see things laid out in front of me to know what I'm aiming for.

It's important to note that there is a difference between writing without an outline and 'winging it.' Some writers in the Don't Outline column are as structured as those who plan every scene on paper. They just have the plan in their heads; as somebody already said, it's possible that the process becomes so ingrained with experience that a written outline is unnecessary. I can't say that I've reached that point, but I do know that for me, outlining adds nothing to the creative outcome, so I just don't do it unless I'm working for or with someone else.

I'm extremely right-brained, so have to combine free think with structure or I meander all over the place: write random ideas/details on notecards, order notecards into categories, write an outline from notecards, then the rough draft with alteration on notecards/outline as I go. It works best for me.

There's no substitute for good writing...and even good writing can't make up if there's no story...

While I find the beat board really clumsy in Final Draft, I use it to lay all the story structure out so anyone on the production can reference it.

I have illustrations on the front of most of my scripts but not the internal pages.

Only script I've ever had forwarded on to me by another producer was one that had images inserted that said producer thought was really cool.

It's an art form. It's subject. You have to get past that and just do you. Creating in fear is a great way to self sabotage and it's why most aspiring screenwriters are failing.

CJ Walley Good comment about just doing you. Well, I have been writing with numbered images in a folder which match the scenes. From now on I'll make two versions of the script, just words and the image version. I am a 3d animator, so I can take a frame and put it in the script now. Easy. :)