Screenwriting : Movie Magic Screenwriter 6 formatting help requested by Richard Allis

I've been writing on MovieMagic for 7 years, but I'm not sure what you're asking. What are you trying to accomplish?

First of all, I was trying to follow David Trottier’s guidelines for formatting superimposing words on a screen (which may not be necessary that I follow them strictly.) He instructed to put “SUPER:” on the left hand margin, then put the words on the screen in a dialogue box. At the end of a couple of my historical shorts, I use 3-5 of these supers to describe what happened after the scene was over. When I do one of these dialogues on MovieMagic, I get a box that says the dialogue has to be accompanied by a character name, even if it is a blank name. So far, so good. I’ll just have an extra blank line there. For successive supers, I not only have a blank character name, but I have a (CON’T) as well. I guess the main question is, would this be considered bad formatting form. Or is no one really going to care, as long as it is clear what I intend. (Which is successive superimposings fading in and out.) (I hope I have explained myself clearly enough. Clarity in explaining myself can be a problem for me at times.)

PS: After importing the script from my old program, I would have “BLACK SCREEN” as the character name, “SUPER:” as the dialogue, and the words on the screen as an action line. When I tried to straighten it out to what I had before, I got the problem I described above.

It's really the only problem I'm having with importing the scripts. But the question remains, how should I format my multiple supers at the end?

I still don't get it. Which script that you've posted has an example of this? I've never heard of it. Super imposed dialogue? So like, dialogue that you need to pay extra attention to? Just put it in italics I guess. But that may not be what you're talking about.

Okay, I posted an example of what I'm trying to describe. The first two supers are what I was trying to do. The remaining are the way it got imported. JP, it's not that I'm trying to superimpose "dialogue", just words on the screen. David Trottier in the Screenwriter's Bible instructed in his formatting section to put the desired words on the screen in a "dialogue box" -- like I've done with the first two examples. Except in this software, it says a "Character name" is needed for "Dialogue", even though my intent is just to put words up on the screen.

OKAY! Now I get it! You want to know how to turn off (cont'd)! Easy. Open MM and then click "format" on the top bar. You'll get the dropbox and then click "element styles..." When the element styles screen pops up, go the far right and click "character names" Go to the middle of the screen and select the "No automatic character continueds" option. Then go back to the far right and click "ok" And that should solve your problems! Let me know if it doesn't work out. But I think that format is strange. I've seen it done before, but it's still strange.

I think I'll be able to figure out how to get rid of "cont'd" . . . but is there a better, less strange way to format what I want to do? Something easy enough to do on MovieMagic? If the way I'm trying to do it is going to call attention to itself instead of the script, I would be more than agreeable to learn a different way to format this. I just wouldn't know what to do.

Just put "Super: blah blah blah" in action. And that's it. That's how I've always seen it done.

I guess every formatting guide has it's own idiosyncraticies to differentiate themselves from other guides. Thanks for help, JP. Sorry for all the confusion. I know it's not something I would really like to deal with first thing on a Sunday morning! :-)

Call me naive, but I just read a bunch of screenplays, followed the basic formatting rules that seemed pretty obvious, and wrote my feature in Word for free. What am I missing here?

Don't ask me. I'm still using WORD

@ Robin, most writers/ directors/producers know when the script wasn't written on a screenwriting program. It always looks a little off. But maybe you've perfected the word written script. Can you post an example? And Celtx is free. I think it would be safer and simpler to use that.

FREE works for me!

Make SUPER a "shot". Problem solved in more ways than one. Top of the page, close to the middle, there is a "radio box" that tells you what the current element is. You can highlight and change the element by dropping the menu from the "radio box" and clicking on "SHOT". Now SUPER is designated as a shot, and you won't have the dialogue continued problem (which is weird, since it is not dialogue) and when they do breakdowns, because it is designated as a shot it will get noted in the breakdowns... making sure that someone remembers to super that info.

Anyone who turns up their nose at a script just because it wasn't written using screenwriting software is an idiot and I don't want them anywhere near my work. If that is the depth of their artistic integrity than f*** 'em.

It's not turning up their nose, it's practical. Once they go into preproduction they will need to breakdown the script by location and day or night using a program like Movie Magic Scheduling or Gorilla. These programs work with screenwriting software (where elements are "tagged") but do not work with a word processing program. I sold scripts that were written on word processing programs with macros, but it was long enough ago that production companies still did things by hand. Now that everything is automated, I think the only way a WP script would work now is to import it into a screenwriting program and then correct the screw ups. So, it can be done, but there's some labor involved. No one is going to turn down a brilliant script because of a little work, there are people who work on typewriters. It just makes everything easier when you use a program that mates with the production software.

Thank you, William. That was very helpful.