3 Apps For Collaborating on Scripts Online

Doriano "Paisano" Carta — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 23:00:53 +0000

Here are some apps that provide useful ways to collaborate online on writing scripts for anything from short promotional corporate videos to full-length motion pictures. Sure, there are many ways to accomplish this task, such as sharing a document using Google Docs or Zoho Write, but these three apps focus specifically on the task of writing scripts, along with the formatting that requires. They each include the ability to invite other writers to join your project and maintain a centralized copy of the material for each contributor to view and update.

Adobe Story

Adobe Labs is currently featuring Adobe Story in preview mode, which means you can create an account and start using it for free (for now, anyway). You can create projects that can include as many scripts as you want. These projects can also include charactor biographies and links to external resources, like blogs or relevant web sites. The user interface is slick and rather intuitive. There’s also an Adobe AIR desktop app (of course) that conveniently allows you and all collaborators to work in offline mode, synchronizing all changes whenever you’re connected again.

Here’s the home page for a fictitious project I’ve created called “The Revenge of The Blog,” which is basically a remake of the classic campy horror film “The Blob.” There’s also a character biography page for Robert Scoble, who will reprise the Steve McQueen role from the original movie (I said it was fictitious!)

Plotbot

Plotbot is a web-based script-writing app that also allows you to collaborate with other writers. The good news is that the web app functions very well just like a desktop app, and automatically formats the scripts as you write it — you just have to come up with the ideas. It’s pretty good at determining what you’re trying to type, such as a scene heading or character dialogue.

There are also some handy tools, such as the notebook area where you can track thoughts and information about the story as well as a forum area to brainstorm with others. You can upload a screenplay if you already have one available. Plotbot is free.

Celtx

Celtx is a little different than the other apps in this collection. It covers a far wider variety of scripts for more types of projects besides film, such as scripts for video, documentary, theatre, comics, advertising, video games, music video, radio, podcasts, videocasts, and much more. It provide a free desktop application that you can download and install, but collaborating with others via the online service (called Celtx Studio) is not free. It provides collaboration for up to five users for only about $5 per month, which isn’t bad.

The Celtx app offers the most features that I’ve seen in this type of tool. Not only can you add dialogue to scripts, it has other functionality such as a sketch tool to draw objects, a catalog to track all props and objects, index cards to arrange scenes and a cool storyboarding tool. Check out Sam’s post on the app for a full review.

So there you go, three different ways to collaborate with others on scripts, whether it’s for an entertainment project such as a movie or a corporate instructional video. These apps make it extremely easy to maintain all related information and help save you time and effort with the medium’s formatting, so you and your team can focus on the creative aspect of writing.

What tools do you use for collaborating with others on scripts?

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Celtx Offers Free Pre-production for Your Multimedia Content

Samuel Dean — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 14:00:32 +0000

Many of us are increasingly working with multimedia online, including video and audio applications for everything from podcasts to video tutorials. While well-known tools such as Audacity and Blender can help you deliver slickly produced online audio and video content, really good producers make use of pre-production tools before they even start recording. Celtx is a free, open-source multimedia pre-production application that is very popular for organizing and scripting everything from screenplays, to audio/visual tutorials, to webcasts. You can download it here for Windows, Mac and Linux, and take advantage of an accompanying online Studios environment to collaborate with others on multimedia pre-production.

When you first begin with Celtx, you’re presented with several types of pre-built project templates for filmed content, audio-visual content, and more, as seen below:

Once you’ve chosen what type of content you want to produce, Celtx lets you build a Project Library, where you can house scripted materials, graphics, video and audio content, and more. If you click on the “My Studio” icon seen at right below, the application will take you to Celtx Studios, an online environment where you can collaborate on your pre-production with other people online.

Using Celtx Studios, you can track who you’re working with, and point each other to shared projects:

As you build your pre-production in the Celtx application, you’re gradually building the components in your Project Library on the upper-left of a multi-pane screen, a collection of scenes just below that (with your current scene on the right), and pop-up dialogs for adding materials to all of these repositories. The multi-pane view is seen below:

Celtx has an excellent reputation among professional storyboarders, screenwriters and producers of commercials. Many of us who have been thrown hurly-burly into producing multimedia online don’t have academic pre-production and production backgrounds. Celtx is a good, free way to get help with the pre-production part, which is important. If it interests you, I recommend beginning with these video walkthroughs.