Screenwriting : The age old question Movie Magic or Final Draft by Wayne Cothron

Wayne Cothron

The age old question Movie Magic or Final Draft

I hope this post finds all of my friends here on Stage 32 well.

Now, allow me to ask the age-old question which is plagued modern screenwriters. Which screenwriting software is better Movie Magic or Final Draft?

I've been using Movie Magic for a few years now and I like it because it's easy to use and it's always a tad cheaper than Final Draft, my screenwriter friends however are always telling me that Final Draft is better than Movie Magic.

So, should I continue to use my old standby Movie Magic, and tell my screenwriter friends to bite their tongues or are they right and I'll have to eat a big plate of crow and buy Final Draft.

Thanks to all of you in advance and have a good a productive writing week.

Wayne

Ryu Reeves

Hi, Wayne! Are you new-ish to screenwriting? I would recommend WriterDuet if you're just writing scripts and trying to brush up on your skills. Final Draft if you're trying to get serious about getting a film made and have years of writing experience already. As it's the industry standard.

Maurice Vaughan

Hey, Wayne. I haven't used Movie Magic, but I agree with Ryu about WriterDuet and Final Draft.

Dan MaxXx

Dont matter for now. Use whatever to write specs. From what my tv ppl say, FD is most commonly used and employers give you FD and a company laptop to write. Also, mastering FD could get you a job as a script coordinator/Assistant. Gotta know how to use revision mode, print, update multiple stacks of rewrites.

Wayne Cothron

I want to thank everyone who has participated in this discussion.

Now while doing research on Final Draft, I discovered that it contains a text to speech feature is it any good, because I want to create short teaser videos for my projects.

Thanks to all of you once again and have a nice week.

Bulent Hasan

OMG i WISH movie magic had current support but it doesn't. I started with that and it made my life so much easier to concentrate on story rather than the formatting. but now, final draft took over, and somehow movie magic just got left in the dust and just ignored. thankfully there are other options out there like ArcStudio

Maurice Vaughan

You're welcome, Wayne Cothron. I use the text to speech feature to read out dialogue and scenes. I only use one text to speech voice, but I remember someone on Stage 32 saying you can assign characters different voices.

Bulent Hasan

I HATE final draft. never liked it. I LOVED movie Magic, it was the first screenwriting software I ever used! I also HATE that they have virtually NO support! NONE at all! Thankfully, Final Draft is still out there and made improvements but I can't justify spending money on their software when we have so many other options out there? I just completed a script using ArcStudio Pro and for a fraction of the cost they constantly update the software and it works like a charm! No issues from me here. There are other competitive software out there like Cetlx, Scrivener, and a few more I'm forgetting, but I think if you have movie magic, and can use it still, keep using it. Final Draft always crashed on me and a lot of what is needed from a writer is a FDX or a RTF file for export/import. you'll be fine.

Ewan Dunbar

I’ve heard good things about scrivener.

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