Writers tend to be procrastinators. Maybe we kid ourselves into believing that we're waiting for inspiration to strike. In reality, we're usually finding new ways to avoid the fear of the blank page. Well, if you have been waiting for the right opportunity to buy Final Draft 8, arguably the industry standard for screenwriting software, your procrastination has just paid off. Final Draft 8 is on sale for $149 at The Writers Store today only, Saturday, December 8, as one of its 12 Days of December Deals.
This offer is $100 off the list price, and the lowest price on Final Draft at The Writers Store all year by $20. So for all of you procrastinators out there just waiting for the right time to buy Final Draft 8, nice work. But don't wait until tomorrow because this deal is only good for today, Saturday, December 8.
Link: Final Draft 8 One-Day December Deal at The Writers Store
Check Out: Today’s Deal Zone Deals – these great deals are valid for just 24 hours – usually discounted by over 50%, so it’s always worth a look !!
With any & every B&H purchase You will automatically be entered into the Monthly Gift Card Raffle.
Your Comment
19 Comments
celtx is still free tho...
December 8, 2012 at 7:38AM, Edited September 4, 7:54AM
And we blog about that too.
http://nofilmschool.com/tag/celtx/
I never buy the "race to the bottom" mentality when it comes to screenwriting software, though. If you're serious about writing you're spending hundreds to thousands of hours a year doing it. $200 for software versus $0 is not consequential spread out over that amount of time. You use the tool that works best for you.
December 8, 2012 at 7:56AM, Edited September 4, 7:54AM
Koo, that's BS and you know it too. Celtx is a perfectly capable software, and why should anyone pay for something that has a free alternative? I mean really, what else can FD offer me, that celtx doesn't? Will I write better stories with it? No. Will it make my work faster? No. I could be perfectly fine with typing out stuff in MS Word (heck, openoffice), or even writing it on paper. There wouldn't be a single difference.
Of course, everyone should choose the tools they feel the most comfortable with, but even 150$ for a screenwriting software is overkill.
Also everyone knows you get $ for linking any potential buyers to this deal. Welp.
December 8, 2012 at 1:19PM, Edited September 4, 7:54AM
I suppose you would be fine on productions hand-copying your handwritten scripts over and over and giving each person on the crew one. Yes, not a single difference. Of course it's just as fast. How silly of us.
December 8, 2012 at 1:35PM, Edited September 4, 7:54AM
"why should anyone pay for something that has a free alternative?"
You sound like my health insurance company. I was prescribed an allergy medication I knew to work for me. I went to the pharmacy and they told me the drug wasn't in the insurance's "preferred" list so I'd have to pay a lot more for the prescribed one, or I could get their alternative drug with low/no copay. "But they're different drugs," I complained. The free alternative is not the same. I mean why buy a Mac if the PC does "the same thing" for cheaper? Probably 2/3 of the professional screenwriters in the U.S. are using Final Draft on a Mac, are they all suckers? If you believe so, I've got some $70 tablet computers to sell you. They're just as good as the best Android/iPads, trust me, why would you ever pay more?
I actually want to revisit celtx myself, as it's no doubt a more mature program today than it was years ago when I started writing (I first used Final Draft back in 2000). But over the course of a two-year screenplay I wasn't about to switch horses mid-stream.
And yes, we use affiliate links when available, like any other well-run website in the world. We're not trying to hide that...
http://nofilmschool.com/disclosures/
90% of our stories have no such incentive, however, and I don't see you saying "thanks" when we write about celtx or Movie Draft or anything else related to screenwriting -- I just see you complaining about price. Thanks for adding nothing to the conversation.
December 8, 2012 at 2:19PM, Edited September 4, 7:54AM
hey, rian, sorry the off topic, but just a tip about alergy: try some qigong if you feel cool about it, great to regulate homeostasis and imunologic system! :) I had a huge efisema in my lungs from too much smoking (around 100 lucky strikes per day when i was into the stress of daily photojournalism! :D) and since my doctor said, 'relax and wait the worse', when i start to spit blood all day long and feel huge pains while breathing, than i decided to give chinese inner medicnie a try 10 yrs. ago, since i already knew how good outer chikung was amazing agains pain in my martial art trainning, and in a couple of month i was with new lungs! even my doctor practice the old weird chinese stuff these days! today with my 2hours per day practice i sleep only 4hours and have more energy than ever! crazy sonoluminescence stuff into the melatonin in the center of the brain these chinese old tech! :D :D Also I stoped with the evil cigarretes too! :D
if you got interested, you can email me and i can give you the contact of some real chinese teachers in the USofA. (you can delete this message too, since is fucking out of the topic! :D )
December 8, 2012 at 3:57PM, Edited September 4, 7:54AM
I love NFS but that pc comment was "outta pocket" like they say in the pimp game and in the pimp game u get pimp smacked for that...pc's r way more usefull than macs from a price-performance standpoint...plus we have better gfx cards than yall mac heads....chill out koo b4 u get online-pimp-back-handed
December 8, 2012 at 5:18PM, Edited September 4, 7:54AM
that's the most comprehensive smack-down I have read in months.
December 8, 2012 at 11:27PM, Edited September 4, 7:54AM
I agree that we get what we pay for and also we get and use what we need and like to use. Regardless of its cost, fame or percieved value.
I shoot with a 7D and a T2i because the video is similar. I plug a very good mic into a preamp and I plug that into my 7D. I edit the video on my PC using Adobe Premier Pro (etc) and sell it to my clients who show it on their tablets and laptops to their prospective clients. The perception of what I do would be no different if I shot it on a RED or an EX3. The quality would be better, the files larger, but the end message would be the same.
Gentlemen, use what you use to do the job that satisfies your needs. The sound I need is what I get from the 7D recording. Comment, complain or what ever. My paying customer likes the sound....so I use it.
Koo...........about your health care provider. I am Canadian and have Universal Health Care. Despite the crap you hear from your insurance companies and the politicians who are in their pockets, it works very very well. I frankly do not understand why the people of the US put up with such expensive and crappy health care.
My wife just received her 5 year clearance for cancer. YEA! The operation, hospital care, drugs,six-months of agressive chemo and all of the visits to the specialists over the past 5 years cost us ZERO. We paid nothing with the exception of about $1,200.00 per year in premiums. The Canadian people own the health care system, we own all of the hospitals and we negotiate with the doctors to set their fees. We are the government and we own the not-for-profit system. Enough said.
I also want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Best regards,
Brian
December 18, 2012 at 11:47AM, Edited September 4, 7:54AM
“why should anyone pay for something that has a free alternative?”
one of the problems with open source/free software world is that some people think the programs are born from nothing from some cosmic aether.
Hope you at least pay the U$15 for celtx, since the developers deserve it.
All take time to make, and, for the good and the worse, time cost money in this planet yet.
Also, if we are pragmatic about it, Ryan Koo is right in his response too.
And personaly Trelby is what I like to use to write my stuff, it's simple and clean, it fits my way of working better, and it's more free than celtx! Trelby free as beer version even talk well with final draft! :P
Even so to donate to your open source or free software projects is a way of respecting them as much as a 'thank you' and also an incentive to the programmers keep burning their heads. Blender 3D is a proof of that, without the users buying stuff from them or donating to them the Blender 3D would not be as good and pro as it is today.
As they say, it should be free as in freedom not free as free beer! :)
December 8, 2012 at 3:42PM, Edited September 4, 7:54AM
this is a free market economy. The longevity of the company is evidence of the validity of their pricing/product.
December 8, 2012 at 11:29PM, Edited September 4, 7:54AM
What's the difference between Final Draft and Celtx? $150.
December 8, 2012 at 9:22AM, Edited September 4, 7:54AM
I got the iPad version when it was $30 or so. With the wireless keyboard and a stand the iPad is convenient and totable and unintimidating and uncluttered to write in. Transparent backup to iCloud afaik. I think the iPad version is still under $50 or so.
Retina iPads are truly awesome to look at video or stills on too, a near-perfect sRGB gamut that I check color on. Not to mention all the other handy apps like Shotlister etc.
December 8, 2012 at 9:48AM, Edited September 4, 7:54AM
Agreed, the screen is truly great, not just resolution-wise. And I find myself doing more and more screenwriting on the ipad -- even if it is slower, it's also much more enjoyable I find (especially for revision).
December 8, 2012 at 5:15PM, Edited September 4, 7:54AM
Scrivener is $50 and I like it better.
December 8, 2012 at 5:16PM, Edited September 4, 7:54AM
150$ and doesn't even have Cyrillic (Unicode) support!?
December 8, 2012 at 6:25PM, Edited September 4, 7:54AM
I just want something that formats screenplays properly. Celtx does that. It's also free.
December 8, 2012 at 11:54PM, Edited September 4, 7:54AM
Yes, that's the point. You need the software to quickly format your text. For the rest you just need an idea, paper and pen.
December 9, 2012 at 5:21AM, Edited September 4, 7:54AM
I love celtx but am going to write a television pilot. For some reason celtx still does not have a television format. Guess I will have to buy Final Draft.
March 24, 2013 at 11:47PM, Edited September 4, 8:21AM