The Celtx Blog

The Promiscuous Materials Project

If you are an advocate of Free Culture, and are familiar with the writings of critically acclaimed American author, Jonathan Lethem, then you'll be excited to learn that he has recently launched
"The Promiscuous Materials Project".

Lethem created the project as an opportunity to make an argument for Free Culture by offering up some of his own stories for remixing and adaptation. He says,

"...These stories are for filmmakers or dramatists to adapt. They're available non-exclusively -- meaning other people may be working from the same material -- and the cost is a dollar apiece...... There's a simple written agreement to sign, which imposes a couple of restrictions, and that's it -- once you've paid your dollar and signed the agreement, you're free to adapt or mutate the story as you please..."

So what do you think? Wanna make your mark in Free Culture history? If so, head on over here for more info.
Here are some examples of completed projects and other works in progress.

Enjoy!
-S

Celtx Review by Zamwi.com's Zach Wilt

Zach Wilt, Chief Architect of the technology blog, Zamwi.com loves Celtx so much, he was compelled to write a review so he could share it with others. So check it out.

And Thanks!! for sharing Zach. Your support is greatly appreciated.
- The C Team

"If you are looking for a way to write that Academy Award winning film I have found your solution. Writing scripts and planning films, videos, or plays is such a crazy task, and staying organized through the writing process is even crazier. Celtx is an application that manages your new media writing without even opening your wallet!..." (more)

Chicago Sun-Times names The Dance Party of Newfoundland 'rising stars' of the Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival

You know, the talent in this Province is really something to brag about. Be it in music, the visual and performing arts, writing or filmmaking, Newfoundlanders have a tendency to pop up regularly on the International stage. Great Big Sea, Artistic Fraud, Rick Mercer, Shaun Majumder, Shalloway, Mark Critch, Mary Walsh, Wayne Johnston, Anne Troake, Christopher Pratt, Lisa Moore, Michael Crummey... they are all examples of just some of the exceptional creative talents that this island produces.

And that illustrious list certainly doesn't end there, because just this morning I learned from the CBC's Morning Show that Jonny Harris, Steve Cochrane (hot guy in Celtx demo!!), Phil Churchill and Dave Sullivan of The Dance Party of Newfoundland Sketch Comedy Troupe earned some well deserved accolades from the Chicago Sun-Times for their irreverent 'This is the Cross-eyed Bear' performance at the 6th annual Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival. CST staff reporter Misha Davenport wrote:

Word about how well Chicago Sketchfest treats the artists has obviously spread. More than 200 groups submitted show clips this year and the 100 groups selected to perform reflect the best and the brightest. Well-known sketch groups appearing this year include Chicago's own Sketchcore, the prolific New York's Elephant Larry (will this five-member group ever run out of funny new ideas?) , San Francisco's Kasper Hauser (known for their unique brand of multi-media satire) and the rising stars Dance Party of Newfoundland and their edgy comedy. Posen says being well known isn't enough and that each group is evaluated equally on the basis of its comedy...more

And if that isn't enough, in this morning's CBC phone interview with Jeff Gilhooly, troupe member Steve Cochrane said they also received some special attention and very encouraging feedback from comedy screenwriter Harold Ramis (Ghostbusters, Analyze This, CaddyShack, etc., etc.). The man obviously knows talent when he sees it.

Rock on B'ys!
-S

iPhone home... About the Local Boy on 24

No... I'm not going to talk about Apple's new iPhone simply because everyone and their dog is barking about it.

Based on what I've read it looks and sounds rather impressive though, so I'd suggest if you're lucky enough to get your hands on one,..... why not call home and tell the folks the great news about how one of our local boys, comedian Shaun Majumdar gets to exchange ammo with fellow Canadian Keifer Sutherland on the upcoming season premiere of 24!

Jeesh - More Good News!

If you are new to Celtx and want to find out what others are saying about us, check out these recent blog posts... :-) -S

Dustin Bachrach Blog - The Best Unkown Mac Apps - 2

"I wish I had found this app before I had written my script. This is an incredible free app. I seriously was blown away that the developer had not made this a shareware download. This app lets you create professional movie scripts and manage all aspects of the fimling process. This truly is incredible... " - DB

Beta Preview - Celtx, free script writing software

by Bill Stiteler

Using Celtx to Create Fan Film Scripts

Today, new Celtx user, 'The Pilot' invited the Celtx community to join him in a "crazy but fun adventure". He plans to....

Well, here..... I'll let him tell you about it (btw - I've taken the liberty of adding some links to fill in any blanks- sc):


"Hi,
I just discovered celtx and I am going to take it for a spin for a new project of mine...
The Alien franchise includes 4 movies: Alien (1979), Aliens (1986), Alien³ (1992) and Alien: Resurrection (1997).

Recently, SEGA, a video game publisher, secured a license to produce 2 video games based in the Alien universe.
SEGA contracted Gearbox and Obsidian to develop these games.
Gearbox will develop a first-person shooter.
Obsidian will develop a Computer Role-Playing Game.
Both Gearbox and Obsidian have asked fans of the franchise to submit their ideas.

Hence, doing my part, I created the following blog.
This blog is very recent, but it's coming along nicely. I plan to post scripts that could be used in the games or inspire the game creators.

I thought I would invite all celtx users to join me in this crazy but fun adventure. Hence, if you're looking for a project that will allow you to get familiar with celtx, this could be it. I would post any quality script on the blog with full copyright and credits.

Questions? Comments?"

Sure sounds like a plan to me, Gang, so I encourage you to fire up your Celtx and get crack'n that Alien egg!
If you are truly interested in participating and have some questions or comments, best thing would be to head to The Pilot's Interprotean blog and ask over there, or jump in to his original post on the Celtx Forum.
-S

Celtx International

Thanks to the volunteer efforts of members in the Celtx community, one of the many appealing things about the application is it's international scalability. So far Celtx has been translated into 24 downloadable languages with 8 more in the works. We still have a ways to go in order to accommodate all users represented in over 100 countries, but it's exciting to watch the use of Celtx spread around the globe. In combination with that, it's interesting too, to see articles and reviews about Celtx written in foreign languages on blogs from all over. Here are just a few examples:

Cineroom

David Mendes

Pixnet / Droger

http://www.av.co.il/Index.asp

Le Quai des Images (Ministere de l'Education Nationale)

Freak Chileno

DVguru's Best & Worst of 2006 - Celtx Makes the Grade - Again!

DVguru's, Ajit Anthony offers up a thorough and entertaining list of 2006's best and worst, from Hollywood trends, software and web sites, to 'Best moves by Morons' and 'Worst Foot in Mouth'.

But the bestest of the best is that Celtx gets the nod for 'Best Free Software'. Check out the entire list here.

From everyone at Celtx, a sincere Thanks to you, Ajit.
T'is a lovely way to end the year!

.

celtx [jaWiki]

[jaWiki] is the wiki section of johnaugust.com - "a ton of useful information about screenwriting. If you don't know who John August is, well,.... here's a hint.
And here are some nice comments Mr. August included in his wiki about Celtx.

Cheers to you, JA!

Celtx Bloggity Bloggers

After the online diary was introduced to the Net about 16 years ago, it's clear now that what has evolved into 'blogging' has become a quick and popular way for the world to communicate. People simply love to blog, keeping an ongoing account of whatever it is that turns them on... or off, and everything in between.

News of Celtx travels fast in the bloggersphere, too. I receive Google Alerts regularly on who's writing what about Celtx. The 'who' appears to be people of all ages from all walks of life, and the 'what' so far, has been extremely positive. And that makes us really happy, so we decided to post that good news here on the new Celtx Blog and share what others are saying from around the globe. Below are a number of mentions to get things started and I'll be adding them as we go.

In the meantime, keep on blogging people... and help spread the Celtx word!

Cheers!
Sheila et al

Portable Apps / Portable Celtx
Over the past year members of the Celtx user community have volunteered their time to make Portable Celtx a reality. Our devs had little if anything to do with it.
Thanks to these volunteer efforts, you can now upload your Celtx program to any USB flash drive, and download to any operating system. And you have your choice of doing that in English, French, Italian, Portuguese (Brasil) or German!

There's a discussion thread related to this over at Portable Apps . It's where we learned that Jacob Koehler took it upon himself to gussy things up with cool graphics and is encouraging further localization of Portable Celtx.

Mr.Campbell's Web Log

Celtx. It's a script writing program that runs in Linux. It looks pretty cool and does everything I need it to do, and more. ... From my initial test of the software today, I can see I'm going to be using Celtx for quite a while.....


$1000 Spielberg-Free Screenwriting Software

By clive

The first is a free screen writing programme called Celtx, for those of ... Celtx does all the things you’d expect from screenplay formatting software, in that it lays your script out professionally (You still need to know the rules! ...
$1000 Spielberg - http://www.1000dollarspielberg.com

randomthoughts - Storyboarding in ID

By the nolans(the nolans)

Heather recently made note of Celtx. I have wondered how a "storyboard" structure might work for instructional design, and this has me thinking about whether it might be useful in that kind of project. Something to look into when I ...

Spinning Grave Productions - Celtx

... text completion, script styles, spell checking, pdf output, etc... It also keeps track of props, characters, etc... all in a database. it also lets you easily share and collaborate with people on the net. Celtx. Pretty spiffy.

The Right Words at the Right Time
One Bite at a Time by Dave

If you'd like to see the script head over to CeltX project central http://pc.celtx.com/project/7I60WH7phhjX If you have free time check out some other people's ... I'm cooking up more tutorials for the CeltX and AMP forums soon....

the thought movement - Headlines from Ghana

By Nii

My writer's group in London are keeping me disciplined because I'm still feeding back on stories online using a great program called Celtx and I've had some pretty good news; it's now confirmed that the first chapter of my ...

Videomaker Magazine
Test Bench: Celtx Scriptwriting Software
by Mark MontgomeryDECEMBER 2006

AppleMatters
Celtx: Screenwriting for the Rest of Us
by: Chris Howard
The spread of the internet has popularized free software. Before the internet, freeware tended to mean inferior. More specifically, before open source software. Nowadays, you can find software that is often a more than adequate substitute for pricey commercial applications. The Gimp and Open Office are the poster-boy applications of the free-generation....

Anti Patterns - The Games Industry behind the curtains..
In this French article, 'Final Draft vs. Celtx' the writer says the discipline of game design is so nascent, it has yet to put its own conventions and dedicated tools in place. He suggests that Celtx might be in a position to provide those solutions for the gaming industry....

The Escapist - Buying into Machinima