Find what works for you. Celtx has been
working for me for years, but you know
you gotta find what works for you. I like
this it's free and you can use it on any
soft on any computer.
I'm on a journey to
create the greatest movie experience in
the world while I'm carving out my
filmmaking entrepreneurial path I want
to help you create yours let's make some
movies hello everyone James Martin here
I'm here to help filmmakers to succeed
in their career and to make better
movies today I'm doing a very special
tutorial on a very special script
software that I've been using for the
longest time this was introduced to me
back in film school I use the software
on all my projects right now it's free
and it's available for Mac as well as PC
and that's called Celtx so today I'm
going through a step-by-step tutorial to
help you to create your very first
script we're gonna go through the
software itself how to download it all
the special features underneath it Hayek
can help keep you organized and keep all
your components together and keep it
consistent it's very important that when
you're writing a script that you have
good software to help you keep organized
that's easy to use as well as it's
formatted properly for your scripts so
that professionals can look at it it
really does make a difference so let's
get right into the tutorial all right so
once you open up the Celtics software
you're gonna open up to a window just
like this so as you can see so we get
automatically started off with some
project templates so you could start off
with a film script or audio-visual you
could write a theater play you could
write an audio play storybooks comic
book or just do some text by the way
keep in mind that it will be advertising
a lot to get the pro version of celtics
this is completely up to you to be
perfectly honest I don't use the pro
version of Celtics only because the free
version has given me everything I could
possibly need but it does give you
additional features such as you can use
on your phone you can share it with
other peoples and have
team members if there's let's say
multiple riders involved so it's kind of
helpful for that part and of course it
keeps tabs on your more recent project
so you get a little sneak peek and some
scripts I've been working on too but
right now we're going to open up a film
script so this is what you get to see so
just to sort of walk you through what
we're going to see at the moment so we
have the project library this is pretty
straightforward it keeps all your
different files under this one project
you know organized so we have the
catalog which I'm going to show you in a
second and then we can get started with
the screenplay but we can also add on
other projects that we wanted to just
work on other stuff at the same time so
we also have scenes so every time you
write a scene the scene titles are just
going to be added onto here and this
just helps keep you organized it's sort
of like chapters in your book where you
can automatically jump straight to a
scene if you want to edit and do other
stuff
and on the right-hand side we have notes
if you want if you're writing a script
and you need to add notes to particular
scenes to keep you on track you can also
write include your medium so this is
like conceptual art this is also music
this is test Clips break down to this
categorizes different scenes and
different things involved in your
scripts right now I'm just going to go
back to notes so now
you see this where it's seen heading
this is important because it's going to
tell you the primary function of what it
is that you're typing out this is
important for format purposes and I'm
going to show you how so right now it
gives you the scene heading which is
important because you start your scripts
off with a scene heading so right now
I'm just going to type in something for
the scene
now I wanted to show you something kind
of cool you see in this bottom
right-hand corner where you have tap and
then action and then enter in an action
so this is one of the things I love
about Celtic so it's meant to make your
life as easy as possible so it already
shows you that if you hit those
particular command buttons on your
laptop or keyboard or wherever it
automatically will format your next text
to that particular format so what does
it mean by action so I'm gonna press
enter so now I'm writing for action this
is what is your character doing what is
happening what is happening in the scene
the description etc so for instance I
might write something like this
right is a very basic description so
that's for as I said describing the
scene etc so it keeps in format for that
so as you notice action and the scene
heading are very different because
they're serving two different purposes
now you may notice that on the very
bottom if I press the tab button I
started writing four characters now
before I do that what it's gonna do
so I'm gonna press action again because
what I can do is let's say I write in
ma'am
as our character if I press tab it
automatically creates a character known
as demand so it's formatted specifically
for the character we can also do is once
you have that I'm just going to start
start over I can also go into action
then I can go up here and see where it
says character automatically it can
format it to character so I'm gonna just
do the same thing so man before I move
on you notice how that master catalog
has one beside it so that's important
because the master catalog is basically
documenting everything that you do and
organizing it for you automatically and
I'm gonna show you that in a moment
right now so if you go to man if you
notice if we press dialogue we start
writing dialogue
I apologize if my typing is a bit messy
I'm literally typing this out with one
hand so we create some dialogue I can
also come up here press ENTER and press
my parenthesis and it automatically
creates a former parenthesis so I know
stepping on morning tea I don't know if
you do that when you first wake up in
the morning so it keeps that for us
automatically and I'm just going to
press ENTER which means we're automatic
gonna create a character but I'm gonna
press ENTER against with on the action
now when I come up here we can choose
between all these options so scene
heading that's what we just saw here
action so that's describing what your
characters doing the blocking the scene
etc character that's the character we're
identifying the dialogue that's what the
character is saying parenthesis that's
sort of right what this is which is
describing what's happening while the
dialogue is being said transitions you
can add a transition as sort of notes
for your editing if that's something
important because maybe you might want
to direct and maybe the way you're gonna
direct and do shots will affect the
editing and there's a very specific way
you want to do that so you can create
the transition you can also write in
your shots so this is extremely helpful
if you're both writing and directing
your movie story whatever it is so you
can start writing the shots right into
the script to keep that sort of
organized or I can just write some text
and then of course I can just get
started with my next scene and notice
how as I started writing it
automatically start suggesting what the
next what I'm trying to write in write
because let's say I want to get started
by writing my character's name I'm just
going to press the letter M
and it automatically knows that I'm
trying to think of the character man and
if it wants me to just if it wants to
suggest other characters again it keeps
it sort of organized and then of course
we have the basic scene descriptions
down here now I want to show you the
master catalog that I've been talking
about for quite some time so if we go
here as I said the master catalog keeps
tabs on everything that is happening in
your story but you can also write in
more information so right now we have a
character right that's our category what
I love so much is it gives you other
information that you can fill out if you
want to so you could be creating a
character and start writing in more
details and even if you have all the
details figure it out when you put this
in here it keeps it all together so you
can also print this off and give your
character seats over to your actor so
they have the same information so you
can run the character tag so you can
find it it easily you can put in the
full name if you want to attach the
media for guidance description and it
automatically shows you which scenes
this character is in now this actor time
over here it basically helps you figure
out which actor you want for your story
so let's say you've already done casting
what you can do and this really helps
with doing logistics especially so I'm
gonna add an item and then it gives me a
bunch of different options so I can
choose between wardrobe I could choose
music and production notes livestock
extras character but right now we're
gonna go to actor and right now I'm just
going to type in an actor shout-out to
Will Smith you're the best
but let's just assume that Will Smith is
on the project which would be awesome I
can go down to actor and because Will
Smith is already an actor in my master
catalog I can attach him and attach that
character task so I can have that work
on us if we go down here we can start
writing in character traits physical
descriptions motivation character
background this really just helps you
figure out and really against the
mindset of what it is that you're
writing right if I go into actor same
thing this gives you all the necessary
information that you can write regarding
the actor and all the other characters
too and again it keeps all this
organized for you so it's super helpful
so now we can go to our screenplay next
thing I want to show you are these tabs
down here but I'm going to show you them
in sort of reverse order and I'm gonna
explain that to you in a moment so we
start off with scripts so obviously this
is where we're gonna write the script
reports keeps all the information in one
place which is a nice title page this is
exactly what you think it is this is the
title of your script so it helps you
keep that organized as well so you're
writing your screenplay the title of
your project the name and it's and the
names of the writers involved maybe this
is based on an existing story or some
other event can write that information
down here
copyright this is where you can put in
your copyright information if you have
copyright information if you're not sure
about copyright here's just my
suggestion just write your name and
write your name and I write in your
production company if you have a
production company
all right then contact information maybe
you're trying to sell this to a
production company maybe you're trying
to sell this off to someone you want to
make sure that if they want to work on
your script that they can contact you so
this is where you put in just your
contact information so this is where
you'll put in your email and your phone
number
and if you're with like a particular
agency or anything like that you'd put
that information down as well
just realize that it and put in my name
and author and I'm just going to change
this to let's say that day all right so
obviously this is just for our example
purposes but it gives you an idea of
what you can start writing in your title
page index card so what I love about
this is this is essentially your beat
sheet if you don't know what a beat
sheet is this is where you start sort of
getting an overview on your story so
you're writing your scenes and start
describing what those scenes are what's
the purpose of the scene and then scene
2 etc etc etc and this way you can very
quickly see ok so where is the store
going do I need to add scenes when he
took away scenes do I need to change
scenes so it helps you sort of start
from the outside in because once you
have your scenes figured out you can go
to your script
right and your script I mean and then
you can start you know fine-tuning those
scenes so that's one index cards does
scratchpad this allows you to keep notes
while you're writing your script at the
same time so you can experiment with
dialogue experiment with different
things and then just bounce back between
the script in your notes now this is the
reason why I wanted to show you this
backwards and this is typeset what this
does is it takes all the information
from your script and formats it to
exactly what it should be and exactly
where you're going to see once you've
saved it to a PDF or printed it so as
you can see here's page 1 the day by
James Martin and here's all the
information
there so that's page one as you can see
and then we go straight to page two and
as you can see it's all formatted to
proper industry standards so we can
continue to move forward and it shows
you how many pages right but just keep
in mind that page one will and include
the title page so if it seems that like
it's one page longer that's just because
you are including the title page as well
as the script itself so don't worry but
I also like this because it keeps you an
idea on you know you could be running
away till the days gone by with your
script and you start to lose track as to
jeez I wonder how long this this script
is so far well go straight to typeset
and it shows you okay so two pages but
it could easily get to you know five
pages ten pages 30 pages sixty pages and
that way just helps you make sure that
okay maybe this is getting a little long
maybe it's not long enough
maybe it's short maybe it's not short
enough etc and then once you're happy
with that you just save it as a PDF it
just saves as a PDF file on your
computer or it could print this out so
it helps you that way alright so I hope
this helps you out this is sort of like
a run-through on Celtics this is the
script software that I use for literally
the last several years on all my
projects and just I hope this helps you
out as well the important thing that you
need to remember is if this script is if
this script software does not fit you if
you find it you know not as comfortable
to use as let's say other software's
then by all means use another software
find what works for you
Celtics has been working for me for
years but you know you gotta find what
works for you I like this it's free and
you can use it on any soft on any
computer so hope this works out for you
and good luck with your projects and
that's it I hope this tutorial helped
you out and if it did please smash that
like button and share this to other
filmmakers so that they can get the same
help as well and by the way if you're
interested in learning about other free
software maybe Celtics isn't a good fit
for you and if not that's fine if you're
looking at other software I have a
video on my top 5 free script software's
that you can download and I'll link it
up in the cards up above and in the
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to help you not only enjoy the
filmmaking life but also how to improve
it very exciting so good luck with your
movies and I will see you next time
