I’ve been playing a bit recently with Celtx, and finding myself pleasantly surprised by it. I tried it a few years ago and found it a little clumsy compared to Movie Magic Screenwriter and Final Draft and promptly forgot about it.
With Script Frenzy coming round a couple of months ago and not having Final Draft on my work computer, I thought I’d give Celtx a whirl again. I didn’t get very far with Script Frenzy, I think I ran out of steam on page 30, but I have stuck with Celtx for tinkering with other scripts during my lunch hours.
If you’re used to the flow of writing with Final Draft the Celtx takes a little bit of getting used to, there’s a few more hits of the tab keys to get everything just so. Also the default editing view shows as one continuous page, so you need to shift into formatted view to see how much you’ve actually written.
These two minor foibles aside, I really like it. The project oriented set-up means that it’s easy to keep all the information that I usually build up while writing a script in one place using the ‘Novel’ format for text docs and ‘Sketches’ of imaginary props and locations. The whole ‘Master Catalogue’ can quickly build up into a very useful repository of character information and production notes.
The formatting is great, easily on a par with any other professional screenwriting software, and the project management aspects of the programme seem very useful, although I haven’t signed up for a studio account, so I haven’t fully explored all of these.
In fact there’s so much to Celtx, that I still feel like I haven’t really scratched the surface, even after three months of tinkering. The Animated storyboard functionality (which looks fun), the calendar and the production schedule all remain un-twiddled with.
One thing I’ve found very useful is the Celtx: Open Source Screenwriting Beginner’s Guide from Packt Publishing. It covers all of the features of Celtx and is a great way to discover everything that it has to offer. It’s not a bad read too. If you’re getting into Celtx, some of the money you’ve saved not buying Final Draft or MMSW could be well spent on this little gem.
Having spent my hard earned money on both Final Draft and MMSW, I almost feel a little bad liking Celtx as much as I do. But, if you’re on a tight budget, Celtx is a brilliant alternative.