Phil Peel

Two programmes on BBC tonight with contributions from my ex students. Firstly the David Hockney documentary filmed by Neil Harvey, then followed up by a documentary about the inbreeding of pedigree dogs with Hermina Campbell as assistant producer.
Both really excellent programmes.

From the Celtx Facebook page -Official

CELTX “Software for Android …It’s in final testing now. Should just be a matter of days.” Friday 17th Feb at 10:47

UPDATE:   Celtx Script for Android now available in the Android Market!

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.celtx.script&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5jZWx0eC5zY3JpcHQiXQ..”

So why am I excited ?  What’s so special about Celtx?

I’ve used many scriptwriting programs over the years. …and I know Final Draft is easy to use and the industry standard. But if you’re intending to actually shoot your film, then you’ll need to start converting the script into production files.   ..and here the industry standard is Movie Magic Scheduling, which is a brilliant if somewhat complex program. Ideal for shooting a feature, but probably a bit over the top for a scheduling a short.

So here’s what I find happens.  The script is exported from Final Draft into Movie Magic and then it’s broken down into all the necessary elements ..location actors, props, costume etc.    ..and that’s great

..until the script gets changed.  I know it should be locked off. but in reality things change. Locations aren’t available, you can’t get a particular prop or the script just needs to be adapted.

..and this is the problem. if the script gets changed in Final Draft or for that matter most other screenwriting programs, then it doesn’t get changed in the scheduling program.

So this is where I find Celtx to have an advantage. As it’s a combined scriptwriting/ scheduling program, so if you change the script, it changes the scene breakdown, and all the other reports.

It’s also has an very effective online sharing facility. We used this to develop “Buon Giorno Sayonara” which incidentally has just been accepted into the 5th Annual Geneva Film Festival, near Chicago, March 29th – 31st – our 4th film festival of 2012.

I also find Celtx is better than Final Draft at some things. For example I’ve just been converting a stage play into a screenplay and needed to go through and change all the lines into the various elements: character dialogue, action etc.

Final Draft can do this. It can change an element. from say ACTION to CHARACTER, but it takes a mouse move to chose the element, then up to pull down a menu, then down to a submenu, then select the necessary element change  This takes ages for each change. There is apparently no keyboard shortcut.

Whereas in Celtx it’s just cmd (Mac) 3 to do the same. It can all be done in keyboard shortcuts.

Well anyway the point of this blog post is that I’ve found out that Celtx is about to bring out an Android version.It’s been available on Iphone /Ipad for some time but frustratingly  not on Android. Yes you’ve gathered, I use an Android phone.  I particularly like the immediate integration with Gmail etc.

But I have to admit that many of the professional apps on the Iphone /Ipad are seriously good ,and unavailable on Android devices.

One of these was Celtx. I’ve been hustling them for a year to get it working on Android and it’s about to happen.  🙂

I’ve just heard from Karen Hope that our film Buon Giorno Sayonara has got another festival award. This time it was joint winner of the judges award at the Iron Mule Comedy Screening in New York Sunday.

Congratulations to Karen, cast and the rest of the crew.

Hey, we’ve reached over 1000 hits on YouTube in the 3 days since the Stand in Line video was made public.