Final Draft 8 review

With more celebrity endorsements than you can shake a stick at, including JJ Abrams, Guillermo del Toro and Oliver Stone, Final Draft is the pro's scripwriting tool.

Unlike Film Writer, this is no hand-holding exercise for first timers. Still, you'll quickly pick up the short cuts used to create the rigid formatting required for industry-standard scripts.

It's basically a highly specialised word processor, and probably the most expensive 38MB download we've seen. The spellchecker works in 15 different languages, including UK English. A dialogue reader is provided to hear your script read aloud - fine if your character is Stephen Hawking, but otherwise robotic.

Final Draft can generate numerous useful reports for the production process. These include character reports, with all a character's appearances and dialogue in one document - handy for giving to actors, or for checking the consistency of dialogue. There are also location, cast and scene reports, which provide concise information for the production team. Most amateur movie-makers may not need such breakdowns, but even low-budget pieces can benefit from these organisational aids.

The writer's vision rarely makes it to the screen unaltered, so there are great tools for tracking changes through those innumerable drafts, and for online collaborative working. You can lock page numbers, so references still match up and it's easy to compare previous versions side by side. There's even a link to register your finished work with the Writers Guild of America - this helps to protect your ideas when you're touting your script around.

Final Draft is expensive, but if writing film is more your thing than shooting it, this powerful creative tool lets you concentrate on the script itself - plus, it'll save you time and effort once production begins. However, if you've never written a script before, you're better off trying Film Writer first.

Author: Seth Barton