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Smartphone Screenwriting: Creativity, Technology, and Screenplays-on-the-Go

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Mobile Media Making in an Age of Smartphones

Abstract

From the typewriter to the computer, with good old pen and paper in between, screenwriters have experienced a shift in how they physically write their screenplays. Along with this shift has come a plethora of free and paid-for software packages to help with writing a screenplay, such as Final Draft, Celtx, and ScriptSmart. The idea of ‘I’ll have to write it all again’ has changed to an idea of ‘I can erase, re-write and copy and paste in seconds’, and even the formatting take care of itself. Screenwriters today are thus able to spend more time writing and less time typing. The market now is awash with apps for screenwriters, from Scrivener to Slugline to Plotbot to StorySkeleton, and although they do not teach the craft of screenwriting per se, they do provide users with some of the tools needed to plan and write a screenplay.

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© 2014 Marsha Berry and Max Schleser

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Batty, C. (2014). Smartphone Screenwriting: Creativity, Technology, and Screenplays-on-the-Go. In: Berry, M., Schleser, M. (eds) Mobile Media Making in an Age of Smartphones. Palgrave Pivot, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137469816_10

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