I was always semi-curious about the Kindle, though I never thought I’d like it because, all pretention aside, I really love the smell and feel of real books (trade paperbacks being my preferred edition of choice). But after testing one out by reading Stephen King’s “UR” (which is a very appropriate first read) I was hooked and recently purchased a Kindle 3.

As a screenwriter I was immediately intrigued with how I could avoid printing out screenplays and putting them on my new Kindle. I assumed I could just Google it and find out the best way to achieve this.  But all I found were blogs saying that reading scripts on the regular Kindle is less than ideal, and that it works better on the DX. The reason is most scripts online are available in pdf format and on the Kindle they get imported and shrunk to microscopic font sizes when it automatically fits the page to screen. Then you’re stuck dealing with the Kindle’s clunky pan and zoom tools, changing the screen contrast and using horizontal rotation… in short, it’s more trouble than it’s worth. Now I know it’s much easier to get a screenplay into a viewable ( see John August’s FDX Reader) and sometimes editable (see ScriptsPro) format on an iPad or the Kindle 3 DX -but for those of us who can’t quite afford those yet, I was determined to find a way to get screenplays on my Kindle 3… and today I did.

Now this only works for exporting scripts that you have in Final Draft, so screenplays you got off the internet won’t work as easily (unless they’re in an editable format, like .txt, .doc, or a text enhanced .pdf – or any format where you can import the formatted text into Final Draft -though not all files are created equal, and some import in very weird ways). It also requires the use of 3 different applications (Final Draft, Word, and Calibre) but it goes fairly quick and is more eco-friendly than printing. Plus you can add notes, highlight, change font sizes, and save excerpts/clippings like you would any other eBook! I’ve also included a Photoshop template for a basic cover page, though you can use any image you want (specs are 600×800 167dpi). For those of you without Photoshop, you can save the cover in Final Draft as a pdf, then open it in Preview and save it as a jpeg file (I’d increase the font size while in Final Draft, to say 18, so your cover isn’t in microprint). I’ve also included a sample eBook converted from one of my old scripts -which is now a movie and available HERE*

Instructions and the template files are included in this zip file (though I haven’t tested it with FD7 or OpenOffice). I hope this helps you with your scripts. It might be more trouble than it’s worth, but if you know you’re sending your script to someone with a Kindle, it’ll at least save some paper! …Now if only I can figure out a way to make the Kindle smell like an old book… hmmmm

Enjoy!

Download:

• Final Draft eBook Template

• SAMPLE: Empire Strikes Back script

• SAMPLE Back to the Future (first draft)

• SAMPLE  Jurassic Park

*WARNING: shameless self promotion alert!

I just heard back from 2 of the 3 Writing Fellowships that I applied for, the news is as follows:

ABC-Disney Writing Fellowship: I must have made it to the next round, as they’ve requested two more writing samples

Warner Bros Television Writing Workshop: Though I did not make it to the end, I was in the Top 5% of the 1,750 scripts they received and was invited to a 5%ers only Writing Seminar on the WB lot in October. So that’s pretty cool! (unless that’s what they just tell everyone…)

I guess I had a pretty decent spec after all! Fingers are still crossed for round 2 of the ABC-Disney one and the NBC Writer’s on the Verge one.

Haven’t updated the blog in a while. Been working on this Neighborhood Watch pilot, but procrastination led to me finally finishing the pic from the Re-Animator photo shoot (for the Down in the Basement site) just in time for the Stuart Gordon double feature later this month at the New Bev. Enjoy!

WOO-HOO! I finished the vomit draft of my Script Frenzy project today, with a few days to spare and 6 pages over the minimum. Now granted the script needs A LOT of work and s total crap, but at least the hard part of getting a first draft has passed. I’ll move on to some other project for a while (like the WB Writing Workshop app stuff) and come back to this with fresher eyes later. I’m glad I decided to sign up for Script Frenzy, in the words of George McFly “If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything!”

Only one week left! 86 pages in the… computer? Not sure what the “in the can” equivalent for writing is. Perhaps I’ll Google it. Anyways, 14 more to go in 6 days. CAKE!

Halfway there and 56 pages deep. Still a nice stenchy poop draft, but perhaps I’ll crank this thing out after all!

So Script Frenzy began officially today! I went to the Brand library with Bill Palmer and we each worked on our respective scripts. I got 16 pages of what’s now titled “Space Cases” done today! That’s way more than I expected but I guess having a really solid outline/beat sheet prepared really made all the difference. It’s kinda fun to get back into the raunchy teen-ish type comedy again. We’ll see how the rest of the month goes, but so far so good! (granted they’re prolly 16 shitty pages, but it’s a vomit draft, whatta ya gonna do?!)

Day 2: Up to 22 pages now. Damn this coming along easy… a little too easy. It must all be crap so far for sure.

Day 7: now up to 34 shitty ass pages. Man this is gonna need a big once over before I can even show it to people. But it’s getting the spine of the story down, so we’ll see how it goes!

So at the suggestion of my friend Nick, I decided to pick up Blake Snyder’s book “Save the Cat.” Now I’d seen this book before but rolled my eyes at yet another screenwriting book. I also always complained about screenwriting books because they’re usually written by some unknown person who doesn’t have any screen credits as a writer. So my thoughts were always, “If you know how to write a script that sells, why are you writing about it rather than doing it?’ It’s sort of the those who can’t do, teach thing. Well Blake addresses both these issues in his book. Even he admits, another screenwriting book? Yesh! And he also has some screen credits to his name. All that aside, the book is really easy to read and breaks down story structure and beat sheeting in an awesome way! I def recommend this book if you haven’t picked it up already or if you just want the meat without the potatoes, you can check out the format stuff here at WikiScreenplay.

So only 13 Days til Script Frenzy starts. Script Frenzy is a challenge to write 100 pages in the month of April. It’s not really a contest or anything, just for self satisfaction and productivity I guess. Hopefully this will motivate me to get a draft of a spanking new script done in a month. I’ll keep updates and page counts semi-frequent, perhaps in quarters. Feel free to sign up and take the challenge, after all it’s FREE!

Working on a new app, testing it out rather now that it’s done. Mainly catching typos and format errors. Prolly won’t be as big as the first one, but kinda fun for people back home. More details to come…