Cinema is movement, and since humans first began exploring it, they wanted to give that movement a story, as we can see in cave art (we recommend the documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams). But every film production must have a production document, and that's where the screenplay is born. That's why we bring you programs to write your screenplays. We'll talk about free and commercial tools that respect the standard screenplay format.
Fade In
We'll start with Fade In, a professional program for writing screenplays. It was developed by filmmaker Kent Tessman and gives you all the useful features you need to write while excluding everything unnecessary. It's truly ideal for both professional screenwriters and beginners. Fade In is a commercial program (not very expensive) that's available for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and Android and iOS mobile devices.
Movie Magic Screenwriter
Movie Magic Screenwriter is a powerful screenwriting program that is notably easy to understand. Its main features include free technical support (all channels), more than 100 templates for writing scripts, a brainstorming system, production reports (film, TV, animation, etc.), a sequence and act creator, and it exports reports for Movie Magic, among many other options. Movie Magic Screenwriter is a commercial program (more expensive than Fade In) and is available for Windows and Mac OS X.
Celtx
We continue with Celtx, a program for managing audiovisual productions. But what concerns us is that Celtx has a powerful scriptwriting editor that lets us write in the standard screenplay format. The tool features autocomplete, spell check, and other powerful features. Celtx is a free program (with commercial versions) and is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Android and iOS mobile devices.
plotbot
We'll finish with a simple web tool that's very useful for film students or beginners: we're talking about Plotbot, a platform that lets you write screenplays from your web browser. You simply register on the site and start writing; from the top menu you can format the script by selecting action, dialogue, etc. In our tests, the program worked well, although it does some things automatically. Another downside is that it doesn't allow you to export the project, but you can save it to the cloud and the tool gives you a URL for your script. Plotbot is a free web program that works in all web browsers on the market.
If you're a film professional, we hope these programs are very useful to you; and if you're a lover of the seventh art who wants to get your first experience writing screenplays, we recommend using the help and templates these platforms offer.
