Michelle Citron is Associate Professor of Radio, Television, and Film at Northwestern University. She also is an independent filmaker. Michelle uses Microsoft Word v. 2.0 with her Compaq Deskpro and Okidata printer.
I've never been intimidated by computers. In graduate school, I used a mainframe computer and wrote programs in FORTRAN and BASIC. I've always wanted my own computer, but I couldn't rationalize spending the money until I saw how much time I could save.
A filmaker I knew had his own company and an Epson computer with Valdocs software. I used it to write a script, and even though the Valdocs software was slow and difficult to use, I saw how much time I could save. A friend was using Microsoft Word and had developed a style sheet for formatting film scripts, so I decided to get Word and a computer for myself.
I've always had difficulty writing. Words on paper seemed so concrete and fixed that I didn't want to change them, so I had trouble revising my work. But word processing on the computer changed the psychological relationship with words. Words on the screen seem more like an extension of my thoughts, so I feel free to change them. It's a lot like film editing. I just insert a new scene here, delete a sentence there, and it all flows together. I print my work every day. I like to see what it looks like on paper.
I really like Word's style sheets. They make formatting my film scripts easy. I use Word's windows a lot, too. This way, I can have a previous version of a script on the screen while I'm working on the new version.
I've never used Word with a mouse, but I want to get a mouse and a graphics program, so maybe I'll be using Word with a mouse. I think the spelling checker that comes with Word is great, but I still have to proofread my scripts for errors that the spelling checker won't catch. I've looked at outlining programs like ThinkTank, but I don't think it would help me that much. A thesaurus would help, though.
I love to use Word and I thought it was pretty easy to learn. I recommend it to everyone.
Karin Pritikin and Ron Poticha are contract screenwriters - writing everything from spy thrillers to comedy. They recently completed a work for Deiter Hallervorden, the Jerry Lewis of West Germany. Karin and Ron use Microsoft Word v. 2.0.
Computers have really changed our writing style. Now we do many more revisions, and more freely, too. When you write on paper, it's difficult to take a pencil and edit. You're revealing your mistakes to everyone. With the computer, though, no one sees the early stages and the markups.
We write under deadline pressure. Often we have just a few days to complete a project, or a producer will send back a screenplay and want revisions immediately.
We like to keep intermediate generations of our screenplays and use Word's windows to see several versions at the same time. One thing we like to do is have each of use write a scene, then put both of our versions on the screen at the same time. Then we cut and paste the best parts of each and make a "greatest hits" version. It works pretty well.
We use Word's style sheets to format scripts and documents for our different customers' needs. We have strict format conventions we have to follow, and the style sheets really help there. Word's glossaries save us from typing character names over and over.
Sometimes we write a dialogue and find that the conversation is backwards - we said the strongest things first. The computer lets us fix that with a few keystrokes.
We travel all over the world to write, so we use a lot of different machines. In Germany, our DOS was in German. We take our Word diskettes with us. Word works very well, but we have to get used to each machines' peculiarities.
We don't print a lot. Most of our screenplays are over a hundred pages, so they take a lot of time to print. We like the Hewlett-Packard LaserJet printer, but most of the time we print on dot matrix printers like Epsons or Okidatas. Most of our customers don't mind dot matrix printouts. They're just happy to get the work so fast.
We use the spell checker for everything, but what would really help is a thesaurus. Some sort of outlining mechanism to help organize scenes would be helpful too. One thing we'd like to have is some sort of database system. We have researchers working for us, and it would be nice to keep their information organized and online.
Not many of our customers have modems, so we haven't started using modems to send screeplays to producers. We send a lot of our work all over the world, and the telephone service in some countries poses a problem. Right now we Telex work oversees. Modems are in the future, though.
If we didn't have computers, we'd still be better writers than we were before, more economical writers. But we couldn't produce the volume of work that we do.
Bob Weeks is Editorial Director of PC Business Software Review.
I first came in contact with computers in high school, when I learned to program. In college, though, was the first time I ever used word processing. Actually, it wasn't really word processing as we know it today. I used a Honeywell mainframe and edited documents with QED, which is a line editor, much like the edlin program that comes with MS-DOS. Then you could run your text, along with embedded formatting codes, through a program called ROFF, which formatted the text and printed it. It was real primitive compared with what we have today.
Later on I had a job where I prepared documentation on a similar IBM mainframe, but I used XEDIT, a full-screen editor. That was a big step up from a line editor, but you still had to insert formatting commands in your text.
WordStar was the first word processor that I used on a personal computer. Isn't it amazing how WordStar lives on? There are so many programs better than WordStar, but it still sells, and lots of people know how to use it. For a lot of people it's important to know WordStar, because many programs, like the Turbo Pascal editor, use WordStar commands. Who except a WordStar user would know to exit the Turbo Pascal editor with control-KD?
Through my duties as software instructor and reviewer I've come in contact with many word processing programs. My favorite programs are WordPerfect, Microsoft Word, and strangely enough, Framework. I like WordPerfect because it's like the ultimate WordStar - but it's fast, has a lot of features, and the commands make sense. You can really do a lot with WordPerfect. I especially like the thesaurus in the new 4.1 version. WordPerfect also handles footnotes well, and can create indexes and tables of contents. My publisher uses WordPerfect, so we can trade documents easily and use the redlining and strikeout features to work out editing changes.
To me, Microsoft Word represents a totally different approach to word processing. Word "knows" a lot about the structure of your document, and it makes it a lot easier to apply formatting in a consistent way. I especially like using Word since I got a mouse. Word lacks a few features, like knowing what line of the page you're typing on, and I don't like the speller that much. But Word works really well with a lot of printers, especially laser printers. I think Word is a unique technology that works very well.
One thing that's strange is that Word doesn't have much of a reputation as a "corporate" word processor like Multimate or DisplayWrite. But Word's really good for that type of use, because the style sheets make it easy to apply consistent formatting to documents. One person could write a set of style sheets and distribute them throughout the company.
Framework surprised me. Its word processing is pretty good for an integrated program - much better than Symphony's, for example. And you have all of Framework's other capabilities too. You can switch over to spreadsheet or telecommunications without skipping a beat. The outlining capability, though, is what really helps. I used Framework to prepare training materials, and outlining made organizing the work much easier. The new capabilities of Framework II - the spelling checker, abbreviations, page breaks - plus the nimble cursor movements make it a good writing tool.
I don't like page oriented programs like Multimate and DisplayWrite 3. They have a lot of good features, but I think the Wang-style approach to word processing is outdated.
I'll never forget the first time I saw MacWrite on a Macintosh. Seeing the different fonts the Mac could make was amazing. Proportionally spaced, too. I've been using Microsoft Windows Write, which gives the PC some of the same capabilities.
In the future I'd like to use an on-line dictionary and thesaurus like Turbo Lightning. Also, I'd really like to have a hard drive in my computer. Some of the new programs really need a hard drive to make best use of them. I think word processing is great; certainly one of the most productive uses for a PC. I just could not stand using a typewriter for writing. It's too much work, and I think that computers have really improved my writing.