Software Movie Magic Screenwriter Version 6
Books and Publications Average Rating:

Rating: - Make Your Screenwriting Dreams Come True!
Movie Magic Screenwriter is a delight to use. It's simple, and saves a lot of time and effort in formatting, navigating and organizing your script. In the past I had a lot of false starts, but Screenwriter is so much fun and satisfying to use that I'm on my last 15 pages of my first script, and I must say it's turned out more sleek and impressive than I could have imagined. And, it's perfect industry standard. I have several promising developments as far as selling my screenplay, and I could have never imagined, or gotten to this point without MMSW.

I love that MMSW includes templates for novels and non-fiction. I am writing a non-fiction book as well, and the programs auto formats it as well. I am in love with this software!

If you are serious about breaking into screenwriting, BUY THIS! I tried Final Draft, and I didn't find it to be intuitive. It was a pain to use. MMSW is the real deal. You'll love it.

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Rating: - Works for me.
I've written screen plays many years ago, but this is the first time I've used a software package to write this type of format. I am used to using different software packages, and using Screenwriter was an easy transition.
The manual that comes with it was very useful, but I was able to start writing my movie script almost immediately, which means that the user interface for Screenwriter was user friendly.
I haven't had to use all of its features, but writing and formatting is very easy and its exporting to PDF worked flawlessly.

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Rating: - BUGS!!!!!
I've been using Movie Magic for over 15 years and lemme tell you this is the worst version ever! It's amazing, but they've screwed up so much in this "new & improved" version that it's almost not worth reviewing (let alone buying). Large chunks of what you're writing will suddenly vanish from the screen because of a margin wraparound bug; call tech support and they'll tell you not to worry because it's not really gone - it's just not there on the screen. What? Huh? You also get error messages for no apparent reason that will send you in endless loops of frustration that would make Kafka proud. In short, do yourself a favor: BUY FINAL DRAFT. Loyalty schmoyalty, that's what I'm going to do!

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Rating: - This is the true Industry Standard
I've worked in and around the entertainment industry for almost 15 years now and though there was a time when Final Draft could be considered the industry standard those days are long gone. No matter what you hear I am here to tell you that in my experience, literally, most people actually working in this town use Movie Magic Screenwriter. Not just the writers and directors but the producers and nearly everybody who has to do something with the script during production. The simple reason is: it is more powerful and easier to use.

For that matter I've seen far too many people finally decide to throw Final Draft away (after I had been telling them to do so for years) when in the middle of shooting and trying to rush to get something ready for the next day Final Draft either crashed or had some funkiness that completely gummed up their files. I've never had anybody tell me they've experienced that with Screenwriter.

The new outlining feature is great if still not fully realized. Ultimately the company should have found a way to just integrate StoryView into the program, especially considering it seems this outline feature is the primary reason it took them about 7 or 8 years to come out with a new version and it isn't anywhere near as powerful as StoryView. Having said that the whole Navidoc is excellent. The notes feature is enhanced to make creating different kinds of notes super easy and much more functional than it was before (and light years ahead of anything Final Draft offers). I don't really use the book marks feature all that much but I've spoken to a lot of my co-workers and friends who use bookmarks frequently so you may find it a useful feature.

I can also tell you this: if you truly have plans to actually see your screenplay go into production anybody who will be working with you and the file will greatly appreciate you using Screenwriter. Everybody is still using Scheduling and nothing, NOTHING, works as seemlessly with Scheduling as Screenwriter. Sorry Final Draft. Nobody wants to open another program to do their tagging and production work and go back and forth between that and the main program while doing rewrites and going through the production cycle. Not to mention having all that work go to waste when bugs wipe stuff out.

Beyond the basic funtionality there are so many advanced features in Screenwriter that it would take an expert manual to cover everything. In my experience any time I've thought "hey, it would be nice if I could..." after poking around a bit I've discovered Screenwriter can and I'm off and running. Now with the new outline feature and script notes changes I am almost 100% fully loaded. Not quite, but as close as anything else out there.