What other screenwriting forums do you find helpful?

V

vroom

Well-known member
As valuable a resource as DVXuser is, I'm sure we could all benefit from options. That said, where else online do you find yourself in the company of helpful screenwriters?
 
First, be grateful that we can even ask such a question here on dvxuser. I used to participate over on indietalk and when I posted such a question my post was deleted because indietalk moderators said it violated their terms of service, it would lead people away from their website, etc.; that sort of gestapo police state action from indietalk made me run from their site, even after i had paid $ to be a premium member. A matter of principle.

I have had limited positive experience at
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.writing.screenplays.moderated/topics?hl=en
the problem being the group is run by a relatively few regulars, and with usenet newsgroups like that it is easy for trolls to hang around and reply with little consequence. Plus once you post to a usenet group you can't bo back and edit your post if needed, or add images, attach files, etc.

I actually have been looking for a dedicated website for screenwriters with regular decent participation, to use in addition to dvxuser, but it is proving difficult. There are screenwriting websites on the net, but when you look at the "Last post xx-xx-xx by ..." such sites show little activity.
~Randall
 
Last edited:
There are a few ... 'helpful' is a subjective word, however.

http://www.donedealpro.com/default.aspx

I used to live in this forum but pretty much stopped about a year ago, maybe more. I felt there were too many Trolls.

You can post 5 pages for feedback - and like all screenwriter forums, it's hit or miss. There is a good section to discuss structure I still use on rare occasion.

The pages posting area used to be very active. Not so much now.

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/

I used this as an alternative to Done Deal when it became unbearable. You can post ten pages for review, and discuss structure. Never saw any flame wars there. I stopped using it when I found DVXuser.

http://www.zoetrope.com/

What can one say about Zoetrope. Francis Coppola's site, and you can post entire short and feature scripts, but need to read four for every one you post. I have had some superb feedback here, but some real useless crap as well. There is a minimum number of words needed to post a review, and sadly, many a review are right at that number. In other words, folks are just getting their four required reviews with as little effort as possible so they can post. The good reviews, however, make it worth the effort - usually.

The main forum under screenplays is something I have refused to ever return to. It is so choked with non-screenplay junk - especially politics - and some of the vociferous old timers there are real arrogant jerks. Also, the flame wars are often out of control.

If you stick to private offices and posting work, it's a great place to make friends in the profession. I use it a lot for short script reviews, especially those slated for production.

http://www.moviepoet.com/
I like this one. Two thumbs up. Maybe start here. The moderator is also a member on DVXuser, and some of the scripts there are produced by DVXuser's filmmakers. Good guy, good site.

*****

As a hint hint, nudge nudge, I would love to see DVXuser add an official script review section. This is a spectacular site, and in my humble opinion, it's the only thing it's lacking.

The maturity level here, as well as the heartfelt camaraderie, would make script reviews heads above the rest.

Yeah, folks post scripts here, but it's not the same.

*****

I love this by the way ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo9gRhctFm8

aw
 
Last edited:
Im new to the site but would appreciate a screenwriters area to throw around ideas,I was looking at some stuff over at the hv30 site.Talk about condescending trolls.its a troll haven.
 
Anybody else getting a blinking horizontal scroll bar at the bottom of the webpage at unk's website? I contacted him/her about it, maybe a javascript or flash thing, hoping it can get fixed. I use Firefox 3 on Vista, maybe that has something to do with it. Just wondering if anybody else sees this too?

TrueIndigo said:
I like to check out a blog by "UNK", who writes articles about his personal take on aspects of screenwriting which also attracts some interesting comments, plus there's some other good links there too.

www.unknownscreenwriter.com
Click to expand...
 
Sigh, I really miss Linux, Ubuntu specifically! I used to run a local LUG, but promoter of Linux. I hate Winblows personally, a necessary evil because of Sony Vegas video editing, Adobe After Effects, Sony ACID Pro, and very importantly Movie Magic Screenwriter software. I have dual boot but just do not boot into Linux anymore because it also just gets too complex tracking my data files between two operative systems on a desktop PC and a laptop and also a USB flashdrive, etc. But I really miss Linux!

TrueIndigo said:
Randall,
I'm using Firefox 3 but on Linux (Ubuntu 8.10) and I don't see that problem you mentioned.
Click to expand...
 
I write this from within Ubuntu Linux: I just tried out unk's site and lo and behold the flickering horizontal scroll bar is not there. Chalk up another craptastic feature for Windows (both Vista and XP, the flickereing was there with Vista on my laptop this morning, and now back at my home with XP Professional and Ubuntu dual boot PC). I might have to think about migrating back to Ubuntu Linux for my daily computing, just boot into Windows for film editing, After Effects; I guess I could switch over to Celtx for writing, or I still have Sophocles fully functioning demo for Windows which I can run in linux (Sophocles fell off the radar during 2008, likely got bought out by Final Draft or Movie Magic I am guessing, because Sophocles was so fricken good); I do kind of dislike Movie Magic's annoying licensing issues, it would not take much for me to drop MM in favor of Celtx or Sophocles.
randall

TrueIndigo said:
Randall,
I'm using Firefox 3 but on Linux (Ubuntu 8.10) and I don't see that problem you mentioned.
Click to expand...
 
"Winblows...a necessary evil because of Sony Vegas video editing..." -- I thought I was listening to myself there for a moment! I use win XP Pro for Vegas Pro, After Effects, Photoshop and writing with Final Draft. Use Kubuntu and Ubuntu for various experiments; I'm sort've biding my time for the day when I can change over. Odd thing, Celtx is not in the official Ubuntu repo -- there's some pretty arcane stuff there in amongst over 23,000 aps (like making unique snowflakes from input perameters!), but not Celtx. Strange. I've never compiled software before, so I haven't tried Celtx yet, but I would like to.

There might be hope for a Linux NLE, maybe ready next year (which would make Linux much more important to me), and that's Lumiera (www.lumiera.org) which is a follow on from Cinelerra CV. Also a multimedia company called Collabora is supposed to be hiring developers to seriously work on PiTiVi (I could never get the old PiTiVi to work). A new one I recently found is called Saya-VE (www.saya-videoeditor.blogspot.com), which seems to be a one-man effort, but has sensible lists of goals and progress bars to let you know how he's getting on. I used to check out a text-based EDL system called Gneve (http://1010.co.uk/gneve.html) but I don't know if it's still active anymore.

If I could write with Celtx and edit with say Lumiera, then Linux would become more than an experiment for me. I know GIMP is no Photoshop, but it's coming along too...
 
Check out Jashaka at www.jashaka.org sometime, jashaka (free, open source) looks like one funky NLE video editor as well as compositor and special effects program, so strange yet powerful, not sure what to make of it; for Linux, Windows. Click here to see some images of the Jahshaka user interface, editing, etc.

I tried a couple of linux NLEs but they were buggy and kept crashing, which is rare for *nix / GNU software. I have gone more to Google Docs for basic writing, then importing that into Movie Magic, etc., but I might switch to Celtx; interestingly, I discovered Celtx for Windows runs better in Ubuntu Linux using a Wine install, than native Celtx for Linux. Sophocles also runs pretty good in Linux with a Wine install. I will check out Lumiera; but Sony Vegas is pretty hard to beat, an amazing program.

TrueIndigo said:
...There might be hope for a Linux NLE, maybe ready next year (which would make Linux much more important to me), and that's Lumiera (www.lumiera.org) which is a follow on from Cinelerra CV. Also a multimedia company called Collabora is supposed to be hiring developers to seriously work on PiTiVi (I could never get the old PiTiVi to work). A new one I recently found is called Saya-VE (www.saya-videoeditor.blogspot.com), which seems to be a one-man effort, but has sensible lists of goals and progress bars to let you know how he's getting on. I used to check out a text-based EDL system called Gneve (http://1010.co.uk/gneve.html) but I don't know if it's still active anymore. If I could write with Celtx and edit with say Lumiera, then Linux would become more than an experiment for me. I know GIMP is no Photoshop, but it's coming along too...
Click to expand...
 

Attachments

  • jahshaka-editor.jpg
    jahshaka-editor.jpg
    62.9 KB · Views: 0
Last edited:
That is Max Adams' forum.

Frankly, the environment itself really fosters the writer. If you have any dying screenplay questions, she (a produced, working screenwriter) will answer. However, I just found the forum itself to be useful, as she's always writing intelligent and humorous anecdotes.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top