Professional Screenwriting Software for Mac & PC

Movie Outline^® was created by a produced writer to take the complexity out of the screenwriting process. Its design is based on the principle of step-outlining which allows you to plan your cinematic structure, develop characters and format your screenplay scene by scene, providing all the tools all you need to develop your idea into a professional screenplay.

Industry Standard Script Formatting

Focus on your story and characters and let Movie Outline handle the formatting through handy "Tab and Enter" keyboard shortcuts. Auto-complete guesses character names as you type dialogue, suggests scene headings and transitions and automatically paginates your script to industry-standard layout.

Character Development

Create three-dimensional characters with the Character Profile Wizard, answer a series of probing interview style questions to build their personality, define relationships with other characters and develop individual story arcs scene by scene.

Color-Coded Story Structure

PowerView lets you customize your story structure into color-coded acts, sequences or chapters and comes with sample templates such as the "Hero's Journey" and the classic 3-Act structure which many Hollywood blockbusters are based upon.

Outlining & Story Organization

The intuitive design helps you build and navigate your story outline, script and notes step by step through an AV remote-style console. You can also use the color-coded drag-and-drop index cards to organize your steps and scenes and re-arrange your story narrative.

Hollywood Movie Reference Library

View 12 scene-by-scene breakdowns and analyses of successful Hollywood movies such as Die Hard, When Harry Met Sally, Pretty Woman, Terminator, and Spider-Man side by side with your own project as you write. Compare your story pacing with the pros and view graphs that depict highs and lows for levels of tension and conflict. This feature can be used in conjunction with our Film Study Ebook of the same 12 deconstructed screenplays in a 239 page PDF file. New Movie Breakdowns are also now available to purchase and download into your library.

Create Unique & Consistent Dialogue

Dialogue Spotlight™ helps you create unique characters by analyzing dialogue and voice-over throughout your script. It allows you to isolate a specific character's dialogue in order to maintain a consistent style of speech and avoid over using or unintentionally repeating words. You can also isolate dialogue between two characters to track how they interact as your story progresses, and isolate voice-over to help you follow the path of narration.

Analyze Story Pacing

A FeelFactor™ is a story element of that evokes an emotional or intellectual response in your audience such as gore, shock, tension, conflict, action, mystery and romance. By setting the level of each FeelFactor for each step you can gauge the pacing of your narrative in the form of a colored graph. You can also isolate and display individual FeelFactor graphs and simultaneously compare your own story pacing with Reference Outlines in the same genre.

Manage Tasks & Ideas

When writing a story, there are always bound to be ideas popping up along the way about character arcs, plot points and story objectives - that's where Story Tasks come in. This handy feature allows you to make a note of all those ideas and snippets of dialogue without hindering your creative flow. With Story Tasks you can easily organize your "To Do" list, check/uncheck tasks as your story develops, print and export tasks, and never forget a witty line again!

100% Cross-Platform

Movie Outline project files and interface are identical on Windows and Macintosh, making it easy for users to switch between platforms, collaborate with writing partners using different systems and exchange documents without losing any data. Serial Numbers are also valid for both platforms allowing you to authorize your PC and Mac. Movie Outline for Mac is Univseral Binary and will work on PowerPCs and Intel Macs.

NEW IN VERSION 3.1

Improved Import / Export

Final Draft® 8 (.fdx) PDF RTF Scheduling (.sex) Scene Numbering

Have scripts written on Final Draft? Or maybe you work with a writing partner who hasn’t yet realized the power of Movie Outline. 3.1 can now directly import and export your script to and from Final Draft. You can also import PDF, rich text and plain text files with layout and Movie Outline will automatically reformat them. 3.1 also displays scene numbers that update as you type, and print and export scene numbers to scheduling programs for production.

These new document sharing features make working with writing partners and production managers across platforms and programs a breeze and the unique ability to open PDF files in their native format will be beneficial for those writers wishing to import and analyze the many shooting scripts now freely available on the web.

Full Script Mode / Scene Cards

Now you can edit a script in its entirety and view the total page count while retaining your step structure. 3.1 lets you select which mode you want to use (Full Script Mode or Step Mode) via the Options menu, status bar or by double-clicking on the outline list while on Script or Step Card views.

If you double-click on a step title in your outline list, Movie Outline will display your full script and a list of scenes in the right-hand pane. This also applies to Step Cards which can now be flipped between steps or scenes. The status bar and purple “theme” indicates which mode you are in and by clicking on the status bar you can also customize display options. When working in Full Script mode the console navigates and arranges scenes and is directly linked to your script.

Content Icons / Speech Count

The outline list now displays a small icon indicating that a particular step has outline content. This is helpful when navigating a project to immediately know where you have outline, script and notes and where you don’t!

Another major addition to the content icons view is “Speech Count” which will now display a small “speech bubble” icon beside the character icon on the Character tab allowing you to instantly see where characters appear in your script and how much dialogue they have.

Simply click on a character name in your character list and see where their speeches appear throughout your story. You can now also sort your character list alphabetically or by speech count, and you can add characters from your script to your project via the Tools menu.

Auto-Convert / Auto-Capitalization

Movie Outline now auto-converts elements as you type, so if you enter a scene introduction or transition (as defined in your auto-complete list) the text will change to the correct element, saving you even more time while typing so you can focus on what really matters - the story.

Auto-convert and auto-complete has been optimized to handle custom scene heading separators for international users and now also auto-capitalizes the first letter of sentences.

Register Script / Submit Script

Version 3.1 now includes direct links on the File menu to Hollywood Script Express, our Script Printing & Shipping Service which you can join for FREE! HSX lets you register your work's intellectual property by providing a digital timestamp to your uploaded file.

You can also use HSX’s unique professional script copying and shipping service to submit your script to agents, managers, producers and contests.. or even yourself! With HSX's powerful and intuitive interface you can track submissions, log responses, manage feedback and contacts and even get your script in the right hands by same-day courier in Los Angeles from any international location.

Improved International Language Support

Version 3.1 now fully supports text input for international users (provided your system's region settings have been set accordingly) and also lets you to choose a specific encoding when exporting your documents so you can be sure your script is displayed correctly when sharing files across platforms with different region settings.