Screenplays and Storyboards, Sitting in a Git Branch

I am a big fan of the Fountain markup language. It allows for some really interesting approaches to a creative writing space that haven’t been able to progress much with one company holding all the cards. This morning, I saw Stu Maschwitz tweet about this new Storyboard Fountain app from Charles Forman, and Chris Smoak. In very tiny letters, all the way at the bottom, they acknowledge that there are probably very few writers that use tablets, and that an iPad app would probably have more appeal. Interestingly, the whole thing is MIT licensed on GitHub. Unfortunately, it uses Node.js, which is why it’s currently a desktop-only app. That kind of explains a lot. (I guess with a web view…)

Just thinking about someone — anyone — using this to think about how they’ll shoot something before they start shooting it fills me with hope for the future. People underestimate the value in that kind of planning.

Indeed, Charles’ blog post is chock full-o-reasons why it’s a good idea to use storyboards. Like, knowing what you need, and saving money.

This tool is a fancy way to organize sketches. Being excited about this tool, is like being excited about a notebook, instead of being excited about all the great ideas you’re going to write in it. I’m excited to build a tool to help a better process, and ultimately make better work.

I disagree with Charles here. If there’s one thing the internet can do, it’s show you how excited people are about notebooks.

2014-06-10 16:32:00

Category: text