Open a Final Draft (.fdx) or Fountain screenplay SCREENPLAY
The script laid out as it prints, in Courier, with its scenes, its speaking parts and an honest page count. Read in this tab, with nothing to install and nothing uploaded.
The script
How long it runs
Scenes and speaking parts
Scenes
| No. | Scene heading | Page | Length |
|---|
Length is in eighths of a page, the way a schedule measures a scene.
Speaking parts
| Character | Speeches | Words | Scenes |
|---|
A speech is everything under one character heading. Names are counted without (V.O.), (O.S.) and (CONT'D).
The script, page by page
How it works
A page a minute, and what this does not do
A screenplay page in standard format, 12-point Courier on US Letter with a 1.5-inch left margin, runs about a minute on screen. That is a rule of thumb, not a measurement: a page of dense action can take two minutes and a page of quick dialogue thirty seconds, which is why the page count is quoted rather than the words. The count here comes from laying the script out the way Final Draft prints it, 54 lines a page, with a scene heading never left at the foot of a page and a speech carried over with (MORE) and (CONT'D), so it should land within a page or two of the program's own.
It does not edit the script, show revision colours, notes or the boneyard, or read Celtx, Fade In, WriterDuet or PDF files; save from those as .fdx or .fountain first. Dual dialogue is shown one speech after the other. Characters Courier cannot print, outside the Western European letters, come out as a question mark in the PDF.
Doing this often? OBSCURA Write writes and edits the script, with Final Draft and Fountain files in and out, (MORE) and (CONT'D), scene numbers, and a PDF on US Letter or A4. On its own, US$2 a month; with everything else, US$5 a month or US$48 a year. 7 days free.