Breakdowns/etc: software or not ?

Randall_Oelerich

Randall_Oelerich

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Anybody here NOT use software for creating breakdowns, schedules, production boards? What i mean is, anybody NOT use e.g. Gorilla/other? I am playing around with Gorilla 5 as i ponder preproduction for my first microbudget indie, and honestly I am wondering if it might be simpler to just go with word processor templates to fill out using a simple word processor for breakdowns, rather than jump through all the hoops of specialized software like Gorilla? or should I just learn to jump through hoops? I would like to hear from anybody willing to share their experience going the word processor way compared to the specialized software way (Gorilla, Movie Magic Scheduling, etc). Thank you in advance.
Randall
 
Randall_Oelerich said:
Anybody here NOT use software for creating breakdowns, schedules, production boards? What i mean is, anybody NOT use e.g. Gorilla/other? I am playing around with Gorilla 5 as i ponder preproduction for my first microbudget indie, and honestly I am wondering if it might be simpler to just go with word processor templates to fill out using a simple word processor for breakdowns, rather than jump through all the hoops of specialized software like Gorilla? or should I just learn to jump through hoops? I would like to hear from anybody willing to share their experience going the word processor way compared to the specialized software way (Gorilla, Movie Magic Scheduling, etc). Thank you in advance.
Randall
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Since I've only shot shorts, I've pretty much used the 'simplistic' features of Celtx to give me lists of props in a scene, and the 'general schedule/calendar' feature. Then used the Open Office spread sheet tool to create shot lists.
 
I did it myself for my first three features. Couldn't afford the software and going through with my 8ths ruler actually helped me become more familiar with the technical aspects of the film.
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I checked out the pricing and saw there is a single user version for $458. Then there are producer, director, crew packs available, with fixed number of licenses.

Question: How large an operation could make do with a single user version of Gorilla 5?

The range of capabilities (breakdown sheets, stripboards, budgets, calendar, cast & crew, call sheets, locations, props, shot lists, storyboards, expenses) looks impressive.

I organized a documentary using a knowledgebase that costs around $300 but had to use Excel for budgets/expenses and use MS Project for scheduling, with no inconvenience. It's rare that any application system does everything you want it to do.

Depending on how inconvenient it may be to have onlhy a single user version, the priicing at $458 is not too bad.
 
Thank you all for the feedback. I really am riding the fence on this one a bit, even though I own the single licence of Gorilla 5. One thing that puzzles me on Gorilla is that though the speaking cast is tagged as such and is red (e.g. JULIE, ZOE, ...) during tagging with Final Draft Tagger, when I pull it into Gorilla the speaking cast names show up not red but green; Cast Members shows up as red in the legend on the far left column showing element types and their colors, but the actual scene elements (JULIE, ZOE, etc show up on the right breakdown column in green and also as Extras on the breakdown sheets, even though they were tagged as speaking cast with Tagger. Frustrating, I can find no way to change that in Gorilla. Maybe the issue is more with Tagger, I don't know. But is becomes time consuming to deal with this sort of thing.

So for now I think I am going to give the more generic spreadsheet method a go. Manual tagging of the script with colored pens, then entry of the scene elements into a spreadsheet, then use mail merge feature to pull in the spreadsheet data into word processor breakdown sheets, then find a way to again use the spreadsheet of the breakdown to create a production scheduling strip that can be manipulated. Generic, portable, free to distribute to any and all crew/DP/Director, etc. at no extra licensing cost. I might go with Gorilla eventually if I can figure out some of the color coding issues and more, and it is probably good I do this all a bit more manually first time through to better understand it. Just an 80 page indie horror, breakdown doable.
R
 
Woo hoo! yeah, i figured out how to do this all with free openoffice/librewriter (open source software) or you could use MS Office same thing really. I tried it with 4 scenes as a mock up test, works great.

Put my scenes in a spreadsheet, each on a row, after first manually marking up a script with colored pens. Spreasheet is thus the 'breakdown' spreadsheet with scene numbers, INT./EXT., cast speaking (red), extra/silent (yellow), etc.

Then I was able to use the merge functions of the word processor (Libre Writer/Text) to view the spreadsheet as a database, connect to it, register it, and pull the fields into a word processor template for a breakdown sheet (for each scene), works great.

Then I learned for the first time how to 'rotate' a column of data (e.g. scene numbers from the breakdown spreadsheet) so the data instead fills a row, so for example the scene numbers now are a row-- perfect for creating the production scedule 'strip spreadsheet' from the breakdown spreadsheet. See 'transpose' and 'paste special' functions of Excel or Libreoffce Calc spreadsheet-- basically just copy the column of data then go to the first cell you want to paste it as a row, right click and choose paste special, then select transpose. Shazamn. Then use the spreadsheet formatting to rotate text like INT. vertical, etc. to create the scheduling 'strips'. This is how far I have gotten, I want to now work on conditionals to make the 'strips' change color to match color coding for EXT. DAY, INT. NIGHT, etc.
 
I thought Gorilla had a trial version for "student films" under 50k. Is Gorilla not offering that anymore?

For a microbudget, Celtx seemed a suitable enough program, and everyone can log into the production to access files. Also free to use.
 
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