The depth of options within Adobe Story is truly staggering. It allows you to write your script from scratch or import your script from any screenwriting format such as Final Draft or Movie Magic. Where you go from there is truly groundbreaking. Send a link to your script for a writing partner to co-write, and watch the script change in real time, or only give out certain rights to those you send to. You can have a non-editable version, allowing producers to give notes without making changes, or you can remove all rights and only allow people to read your script. Always password protected, the ability to co-write from anywhere in the world over a secure network makes use of the amazing gift we call the internet. If you need to write offline, you can…and as soon as you are connected to the web, your script will update online.
Another great little option is if you have more information, such as character descriptions, that are not a part of your script, you can import them and that info will travel as metadata throughout the production process.
A primary focus of the new production tools from Adobe is metadata, which allows you to search your media for specific items. This is very helpful in breaking down a script for production reports. In fact, you no longer have to do the breaking down! Adobe Story can export reports such as characters in each scene, sides, locations, or any custom breakdown of data available in your script. The metadata continues through the process into OnLocation.
So you've written a script and you're now into production. Welcome to hell. But your post hell will be minimized by using this amazing new tool. Time stamp every time your camera starts rolling, and input scene/shot information with some quick moves of the mouse using the metadata from the screenplay. When your P2 cards or CF cards come to you for import, all of the shots will line up with the click of a button. OnLocation uses time-stamp information to attach the shot name, take, and scene heading to each take. (Editor Jeremy Hanke used this featured on his real world Depleted: Day 419 shoot and found that, while it wasn't flawless, it did work quite well.)
No need to have to go through and rename each individual take! If that isn't exciting enough, OnLocation also grabs the dialogue information from the script, and attaches it to the shots. If you want to freak out, open your takes in Adobe Premiere and bring up the metadata in a window next to the player. Have Premiere Pro analyze the spoken words in comparison to the script. If your actors are sticking closely to the actual script, each word will be highlighted as the actors say each one.
Story is still in its initial version and is provided with all of the Creative Suites. For being a first release, its performance is pretty good. The downsides of it are related to the newness of the program. Some of the more robust elements of other screenwriting programs aren't yet available, like the ability to attach pictures to characters, or the ability to create an entire script package that people can be given access to in entirety. (Right now, you can add links to websites you wish to reference, put in information about characters, and update the script. However, to share this access with other folks, you must provide a separate access request for both the script and each character bio. Links can't yet be passed along this way at all.) You also can't create accounts for people to access Story directly, the way you can if you own a website or a Wordpress site. Instead, you must send them an invitation and they will only show up as having been invited once they accept it and create their own Adobe.com account. Streamlining of these features will be a great improvement in the future.
For now, however, the performance in this setup is very impressive!
