Item Details
Price: $186.78
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Final Draft Version 8
Price: $186.78
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Technical Details
- Final Draft 8 combines powerful word processing with professional script formatting in one self-contained, easy-to-use package specifically designed for writing movie scripts, television episodics and stage plays
- No need to learn about script formatting rules--Final Draft automatically paginates and formats your script to industry standards as you write
- Television show, screenplay, stage play and graphic novel templates are included to help get you started
- Have your script read back to you by assigning different male and female voices to each of your characters with text-to-speech
- New XML file format for compatibility with a wide variety of other products
Product Details
Product Weight: 0.50 pounds
Shipping Weight: 0.40 pounds
Model: FD8-CASE
Manufacturer: Final Draft
Sales Rank: 174
Customer Reviews
They're becoming lazy...,
by Sven Mund, 2010-02-22
I used Final Draft for quite a few years, version 6 through 8. I was still quite happy with version 6, then came out version 7 that was extremely buggy and one of the main bugs was never fixed (it could cause formatting errors in your whole screenplay which took ours to fix), which I think is unacceptable for [...] software. Anyway, version 8 was stable again, but I still thought it was lacking so I looked around and found movie outline, which was around the same price, but more feature rich. I especially appreciated that it had a great outline feature, which I think is also important for a screenwriting software. Anyway, even though I liked it better, it still was far from perfect. And then I heard about 'Montage'. And I must say, it's not perfect either, but it's getting much closer. It has a great outline feature, the user interface is very intuitive and very efficient (and nice looking), finding your way around your screenplay, changing characters, scene locations, scenes etc. is much easier, adding notes that are not directly in your screenplay, but can easily be accessed when you're looking at your screenplay (one of the many features lacking in Final Draft, which always drove me mad) is also possible. Anyway, you get the idea, extremely feature rich, easy to use, very good interface... and it's only half the price of Final Draft. And it seems version 2 is coming out soon, so I'm quite excited. One thing that's missing in this software is a good coloring system, so I hope version 2 will have that (but the coloring system it has, thought lacking, is better than final drafts, since it has a few more colors. But a good coloring system, in my opinion, should allow you to assign several colors to the same scene, which neither of these softwares permits. I find that a mystery, by the way. It would be so simple to implement and would be something extremely practical (I'm shaking my head as I'm writing this). Anyway, if you're looking for a screenwriting software that goes a bit further than Final Draft, I'd advise Movie Outline or Montage (though I clearly prefer Montage, as you can see). And if you have another [...] to spend (which you'll have saved by not buying Final Draft) I'd advise "Contour" which is a Screenplay outlining/development software which is a bit based on the idea of the great books "A writer's Journey" and "Hero with a thousand faces". Seems there'll be an iPhone version soon too. Anyway, "Contour" is nice, but far from great, but since it's only [...] and there aren't really any good screenplay plot development softwares out there, even mediocre is a cut above the rest.
Keeps deactivating,
by D. Patrick, 2010-01-31
If you use a Mac - you might want to think twice before buying Final Draft. For some reason this new incarnation of the program keeps deactivating and to get it reactivated, you have have to call in, give a credit card number, wait for half an hour on hold and then hope that they credit your card back as they are not supposed to charge it for reactivation. They just won't fix this flaw. It has happened 5 times now and I am sick of it. I am writing this as I am on hold with them now and not writing my screenplay as I'm supposed to be doing. Until they get their act together, I highly suggest Mac users avoid this one unless you don't mind this annoying issue. It's too bad too, because I really love the program and wish they could get this resolved.
Vertical learning curve,
by bernie, 2009-12-05
Just add words
You may just add words but for me it is a convoluted mess. I am hoping that it is because this is my first encounter with any screen writing software. When you add features, you add complexity.
I have several started items in Microsoft word and find it easy to enter move and proofread. I have not been able to find a way to drag and drop it into the Final draft product. It looks like I will have to learn the tool and add from scratch. Even though it can get intricate, I am now trying to find a way to merge scene, narration, and dialog in a coherent, time line instead of on separate cards.
So fare I have found nothing mechanically wrong with the product. It installed with the minimum of effort (Vista 64). The product comes with a decent installation manual.
I am now reading the manual to hope to get a handle on where to start and how to combine the elements. Luckily or by design, the menus and option follow the Microsoft layout so I can pretty well guess how to get to the option I want.
Once I get past all the original setup details it looks like this will be a useful tool. The trick is not to pick up any bad habits like designing the script on Microsoft word first.
Great screenwriting program,
by Joy B. Spraycar, 2009-10-24
I've enjoyed learning more about screenwriting through this program. I'm going to seriously work on a couple of screenplays now.
Must have for writing scripts,
by Benjamin John Malloy, 2009-10-16
Great buy! I live in LA and was taking acting classes. I decided to try a writing class too and people in the class recommended using Final Draft. Really a great program. I've mentioned it to a few other people since and although it was not something I'd heard about previously, apparently it is the program that is used for all movies and scripted TV shows. Glad I picked it!