Final Draft vs. Movie Magic Screenwriter
The first couple of screenplays I wrote, I used a typewriter. It was insanely difficult. Then I found something that would work on my computer. It was a $3000 computer that ran at a whopping 3MHz (that's NOT a typo). The software was called Movie Master and I loved it. It made it so much easier!! It was great for screenwriting AND could also do character and scene breakdowns. I found it very user friendly but I must have been in the minority. It faded from popularity and was not available within a couple of years.
Two new programs rose to the forefront. I tried them both and ended up using Final Draft. Final Draft was less expensive than Movie Magic and behaved a lot like Movie Master. There were a lot of people in L.A. who said I should use Movie Magic Screenwriter. They said it was more of the industry standard. Of course it was the industry standard; it was four times more expensive than Final Draft. In the early days, the reason it was so expensive was because it was bundled with a budgeting and scheduling component. A few years later, they separated them and the other packages were sold separately. The three pieces worked well together but I wasn't producing film at the time so the extra functionality just wasn't important.
Well, now, this is no longer true. Initially, I entered BAD T!MING in Final Draft because I love the keyboard commands. It's so easy to move between elements. It's just a breeze. I had purchased Movie Magic several months earlier but I just didn't like it as much. It was too hard to switch elements. The interface seemed clunkier. I kept using the program that was familiar.
THEN, I WANTED TO DO THE BREAKDOWNS FOR BAD T!MING. The promotional materials said Final Draft could export the breakdowns. Unfortunately, they exported in formats that could be used by other software packages but were not very user friendly. I imported the script into Movie Magic and was pleased to discover that Movie Magic could easily export Character Breakdowns, Location Breakdowns, Scene Headings ... literally dozens of useful, easy to use compilations of data that I needed for production in Zambia.
I wanted to do a Day of Days Stripboard so I looked at more robust scheduling programs. I settled on Entertainment Partners Scheduling. I took the exported Final Draft breakdown and the exported Movie Magic breakdown and brought them into EP Scheduling. The Movie Magic came in like a dream. Now, I still think the interface is clunky and wish it had the keyboard commands but, BOTTOM LINE, for independent film production, I would strongly recommend Movie Magic Screenwriter. It's hands down better.
