Movie Outline Screenwriting Blog

December 15, 2021 (London, UK) – UK technology company Nuvotech has lanuched its inaugural Script Studio^® 2022 Feature Screenwriting Contest in the hope of discovering new international screenwriting talent.

In partnership with Nuvotech’s online creative writing services portal “Hollywood Script Express” and experienced industry professionals, the screenplay contest intends to offer emerging screenwriters with unique voices and original ideas an opportunity to get their script in front of agents, managers, producers and development execs.

This year’s total prize fund of $10,000 in cash and prizes will be distributed among the top 5 scripts in 7 genres, with genre category winners receiving $500 cash and the Grand Prize Winner walking away with $2,500 cash in total. A “Guaranteed Option” prize will also be offered to one or more scripts.

“We’ve been planning this venture for some time”, said Ben Gardner, Contest Coordinator“… and are all thrilled to be launching a brand new screenwriting competition. Our annual feature contest aims to highlight the best international writing talent, circulate and promote the winning scripts to our industry partners and raise the profile of their writers. We have lined up some fantastic judges with years of industry experience and will be expanding our jury as the competition progresses.”

7 Genre Categories:

• Action/Adventure
• Comedy
• Drama
• Sci-Fi/Fantasy
• Thriller/Horror
• Animation/Family
• Historical/Biopic

The Early Deadline is January 15, 2022.

To learn more or enter click here

About Nuvotech

Nuvotech is a software and web services company based in London, England founded in 1999 by produced screenwriter Dan Bronzite to offer innovative software and services for the creative writing industry. Its most recognized brands are Script Studio, a cross-platform creative writing application, and Hollywood Script Express a script coverage, editing, copying & delivery service in Los Angeles.

May 1, 2019 (London, UK) – UK technology company Nuvotech is awarded the 2019 Xojo Design Award of “Best Vertical Market App” for its popular creative writing software Script Studio^® – an innovative Mac & Windows desktop application for screenwriters, playwrights and novelists.

The annual Xojo Design Awards foster creativity and encourage independent development by rewarding developers that produce quality products. The criteria on which the software is judged includes creativity, ease of use and design.

“The awards honor excellence in software design, and with so many entries this year, judging was not easy on us”, said Geoff Perlman, founder and CEO of Xojo, Inc, when he announced the winners during his Keynote in Miami, Florida at the Xojo Developer Conference.

“We are delighted to receive this award and grateful to have our hard work recognized”, said Dan Bronzite, produced screenwriter, CEO and head developer at Nuvotech, “Since Script Studio’s release in 2017 we have been overwhelmed by the positive feedback and enthusiastic support from the growing screenwriting and novel writing community choosing our app for their creative writing endeavors, and being acknowledged by our peers is the icing on the cake.”

Script Studio — Key Features

• Professional Industry Standard Screenplay Formatting & Pagination
• Sequence Outlining & Story Organization
• Character Development Tools
• Dedicated Novel Mode & Chapter Headings
• Right-to-Left & Diacritics Support For International Users
• Night Mode
• Audience Engagement & Analysis Charting
• Visual Drag ‘n’ Drop Index Cards
• Color-Coded Structuring & Customizable Templates
• Character Dialogue Focus
• Global Scratch Pad
• Story Tasks “To Do” List
• Screenwriting Glossary
• Dictation Assistant
• Table Read “Text-To-Speech”
• Powerful Print, Import & Export Options
• 12 Scene by Scene Hollywood Movie Breakdowns & Analyses
• 100% Cross-Platform File Exchange & Matching Modern UI

Download a Free Trial or Buy Now from the Script Studio Store or Mac App Store.

Educational Solutions

Script Studio is ideal for students learning screenwriting because of its intuitive and structured approach to story development which allows you to build your script or novel step by step and chapter by chapter and can easily be tailored into modules for teaching. The software is already adopted by schools and universities across North America and Europe and Nuvotech strongly supports this through affordable academic pricing for individual licenses and multiple seats for screenwriting labs.

Pricing and Availability

Script Studio is available as a download from the Script Studio website for Mac 10.7 and Windows 7 or higher operating systems. The suggested retail price is $199.95 but competitive upgrades from Final Draft and academic pricing is available if you contact Nuvotech directly.

About Nuvotech

Nuvotech is a software and web services company based in London, England founded in 1999 by produced screenwriter Dan Bronzite to offer innovative software and services for the creative writing industry. Its most recognized brands are Script Studio, a cross-platform creative writing application, and Hollywood Script Express a script copying and delivery service in Los Angeles.

Everyday thousands of pets are killed in Southern and Central California shelters. START (Shelter Transport Animal Rescue Team) was formed to address the issues of overpopulation by providing two very important components:

1. TRANSPORTS

Animals are rescued from high kill shelters and transported to Pacific Northwest rescue organizations, where they are re-homed.

2. SPAY/NEUTER

START funds veterinary clinics in local communities to facilitate no/low cost spay/neuter services, in the hopes of reducing unwanted births and less intakes at the already overcrowded animal shelters.

Nuvotech now offers its screenwriting software Movie Outline 3 and Script It! through the START store at a discounted price and 20% of all proceeds go directly to START.

If you would like to make a difference for mistreated animals please subscribe to START’s recurring donation.

Remember, every gift saves lives!

Donate here: http://startrescue.org/donate/

Buy Software & Donate: http://startrescue.org/shop/alliance-partners/non-pet-related/

Constructing an original, entertaining and intelligent plot is hard work, but that should not mean you should settle for the easy option when writing a screenplay.  In fact, the opposite should apply.  If it’s difficult to come up with something original then push yourself as a screenwriter that much harder.  Force yourself to be innovative because if you do you will undoubtedly produce something much more engaging and satisfying for an audience in the process.

Many writers of fiction, especially crime fiction, use a MacGuffin in complicated plots to drive a story forward, and Alfred Hitchcock (who coined the term) was one of them.  The whole point of the MacGuffin is that it is irrelevant. As Hitchcock himself explained, the MacGuffin is: “the device, the gimmick, if you will, or the papers the spies are after… The only thing that really matters is that in the picture the plans, documents or secrets must seem to be of vital importance to the characters. To me, the narrator, they’re of no importance whatsoever.”

In the golden era of Hollywood, writers and directors were never always as concerned as their modern day counterparts to get all the facts straight.  So long as the women looked sexy, the men looked rugged and there were guns and chases the Hollywood Execs were happy.  To illustrate the point, you may have heard about the classic Howard Hawkes movie The Big Sleep with Bogart and Bacall, based on the novel by Raymond Chandler.

In the story there was confusion surrounding the death of the Sternwood family chauffeur, a character named Owen Taylor. Apparently somebody sent a telegram to Raymond Chandler asking him “Who killed the chauffeur?”.  He replied “Damned if I know.”  It’s an amusing anecdote but I know that from my experience when developing a screenplay with producers and development executives that you must have an answer for everything and that nobody would be impressed with a reply like that.

So to avoid such professional faux pas and to make  sure the logic of your crime thriller is coherent I suggest you do your utmost as a writer to iron out all the creases in your plot BEFORE you present it to anyone.  And most importantly, do not rely on coincidence to be the solution.  If you hero just happens to find a gun under the bed during a frantic struggle with his nemesis then that’s poor penmanship.  If your heroine loses her job and then just happens to bump into someone who offers her another, that’s lazy.

As always, there are exceptions to the rule and sometimes a particular story or genre can get away with it so long as it’s an intentional screenwriting choice and clear to the audience as such.  But generally you should set up events so they do not seem coincidental.  If it strikes you as obvious then try to figure out another way around revealing a crucial piece of information or engineering a chance meeting without it being too contrived.  If that fails, you could always try to conceal your coincidence behind a powerful moment of action or drama and hope the audience don’t notice!

UK technology company Nuvotech today announced the availability of their popular creative writing software Movie Outline 3 and Script It! to Canadian customers through Best Buy’s Canadian online store.

“We’re very pleased to offer Canadian writers the opportunity to order our software from within their own country with free shipping — and from one of the world’s most trusted brands.” comments Dan Bronzite, produced screenwriter and CEO of Nuvotech.

Visit BestBuy.ca to order Movie Outline 3 or Script It! today and write your own Hollywood Blockbuster!

Movie Outline 3 is also available from Amazon.ca, as is Script It!.

About Best Buy

Best Buy is Canada’s fastest-growing specialty retailer and e-tailer of consumer electronics, personal computers and entertainment software.  Best Buy offers consumers a unique shopping experience with the latest technology and entertainment products, at the right price, with a no-pressure (non-commissioned) sales environment.  The Company is committed to kids and communities, supporting non-profit organizations that help youth develop their skill set, discover their talents and sustain a lasting interest in education.

About Amazon

Amazon.com, Inc.is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States and is the world’s largest online retailer.

About Nuvotech

Nuvotech Limited is a software and Web 2.0 services company based in London, England. It was founded in 1999 by produced screenwriter and director Dan Bronzite to publish innovative software and services for the creative industry. Its most recognized brands are Movie Outline a cross-platform screenplay development application and Hollywood Script Express a script copying, copyright and delivery service in Los Angeles.

As a screenwriter it is important to remember that while the stories we tell should reflect real-life (or aspects of it) in order to engage an audience and help them identify with the narrative and characters that inhabit the world we create, life is different from movie life.  In real life events occur in chronological order and time passes much, much slower.. even though some days may not feel like it.  If we recounted the story of our day in minute detail minute by minute to our friends over a drink after work, they’d probably shoot themselves or jump off a bridge with suicidal boredom because most of the events that occur are insignificant and uninteresting.

From the moment we are awoken in the morning by our alarm clock to the moment we arrive at work, many, many things have happened.  But put them all in a screenplay and it won’t be a blockbuster, unless of course your entire story is about an hour in the life of an everyday man who gets kidnapped on his way to work due to a case of mistaken identity!

A movie may begin by showing a man waking up, getting ready for work, feeding his dog and jumping into his car, and that’s fine.  It reveals certain things about the character that may be important for us to know before the story unfolds.  Similarly, a scene in the middle of a movie could contain these events, but ONLY if it is important to the character, plot or pacing.  Otherwise, condense those events into a shorter sequence of shorts or cut them altogether.

And that’s where the concept of “getting in and out early” plays its crucial part.  When writing a screenplay, you only have so much time to tell the story and so you must not waste those precious moments on things that don’t matter.  Why not cut from the alarm clock, to his irritated expression in bed and then right to him sitting down at his desk?  It still works, doesn’t it.  Absolutely.  And the great thing is we now have more time to spend on more significant plot and character developments.

I’m not saying go through your script and condense everything to the point that it’s all cut – cut – cut.. that would be equally annoying and give us a headache.  Pace means highs and lows, fast and slow, moments of intense action and lulls for us to contemplate what has passed.  The key is to find an effective balance and part of that is understanding when there is too much “chaff” in your scene to scene progression. So remember to get into your scene as late as possible and out of it as early as possible. This will tighten a flabby script and help focus your audience’s time and attention on the things that really matter.

Nothing in life is easy, so why should “movie life” be any different?  Whether you are writing a drama based on true life events or a science fiction movie set on a distant planet, normally there is a common thread – characters.  An audience has to identify with your characters in order to empathize with their plight and have an interest and emotional connection with their stories.

So making your characters real is important.  And equally as important is making the situations they are in realistic.  That’s why introducing conflict is critical to writing a screenplay.  If your characters say, do or get what they want without any obstacles then it will not reflect real life and as such you will lose your audience.

Whether it’s a psychological obstacle or a physical one, make sure your protagonist’s journey isn’t simple.  If they’re hungry and drive to the store for food, make the cops stop them for speeding or give them a flat tire.  If they ask someone out on a date, make that someone already have a partner.  If they want to say “I love you”, give them a reason for holding back and make the fact that they don’t say it at that particular time cause problems in their relationship.

Apart from drawing your audience into the story, using conflict also makes it more rewarding for your characters and the audience when the hero does finally get the girl or save the planet from imminent destruction.  Having said that, don’t go overboard and make absolutely everything a battle of words or actions.  Pick your fights and choose wisely otherwise it will feel equally unrealistic.

And a final point: ensure that some of the conflict you introduce works on the scene level with nothing to do with the over-arching story or theme — such as your hero having a bad day and waking up the next morning to find out he/she has run out of coffee — and also on the story and character development level, i.e. your hero is wounded in a fight scene making it harder for him to face the villain in the final showdown.

Script writing is a creative process and while you may not like the idea of analyzing your work, sometimes it is good to step back from your story and take a look at the narrative’s event to event causality so as to ensure it is believable and engaging.