We will learn about printing a script and reports of the script. This tutorial will take about 15 minutes depending on the speed of your printer. We will use about 25 sheets of paper.
Open the script. It will be in card view from your previous save. You can change it to another view or leave it where it is.
Select File, Print… You will get the print dialog box. For the Print range select Pages 1 to 3. Under Print what, it will default to the view mode presently up. Select Document and press OK (or press Enter).
It should print out pages 1 - 3 of the script.
Select File, Print… You will get the print dialog box. For the Print range select Pages 1 to 3. Under Print what, it will default to the view mode presently up. Select Outline and press OK (or press Enter).
It should print out pages 1 - 3 of the outline. This is a little different than script pages as it fills each page and outline paragraphs are always single spaced between each other.
Select File, Print… You will get the print dialog box. For the Print range select Pages 1 to 2 Under Print what, it will default to the view mode presently up. Select Index Card 3:3x5 (Avery 5388) and press OK (or press Enter).
It should print out the first 6 scenes of the script. If you get paper stock 5388 from Avery and print on that, it will print on perforated card stock that you can then tear apart to get 3 x 5 index cards. It will only print as much as it can on each card.
Select File, Print… You will get the print dialog box. For the Print range select Pages 2 to 2. Under Print what, it will default to the view mode presently up. Select Highlight Character and under Character select SUSAN. Then press OK (or press Enter).
It should print out page 2 of the script. All of Susan’s lines are in bold.
Now switch to Outline view. Click on the Show Action toolbar button so that the Action paragraphs are not displayed. Once again print pages 1 to 3 in both document and outline modes. In both cases the Action paragraphs are not printed. The document printing will keep the page breaks at the same place, just printing less on each page. However, the outline view will have filled up each page and you will have more of the script.
If you press the print toolbar button, it will print the entire script in the format that matches the view you are presently in. (I.e., if you are in outline view, it will print in outline format.)
Each report will first come up in a Print Preview window. Just click the Print button and it will print. While you can just preview each report, you should print them to see what you can actually get.
Select Reports, Scene Report… This lists out each scene in order, the page it starts on, and how long it is to the nearest ¼ of a page.
Select Reports, Character Reports… Select the check box labeled Include action. Then select SUSAN and then press OK. You will get, broken down by scene, all dialogue for Susan with the page and line number each paragraph starts at. It also includes all Action lines directly preceding dialogue for Susan.
Skip Reports, Note Report… as there are no notes in the script.
Select Reports, Scene Details… This report gives you a large amount of information. The first line of each block is the scene number and the scene heading.
On the next line the first three numbers are for the Action in that scene. The first number is what percentage of the scene is Action. The next number is the average length of an Action paragraph. When it says 1½ lines that means the average paragraph is 2 lines long but the second line only goes halfway across. The third number is the length of the longest Action paragraph in the scene.
The next number is the number of people in the scene. If it says 2 it means there are only 2 speaking parts in that scene. However, those two people can have numerous pieces of dialogue in the scene.
The next three numbers are for dialogue what the first three were for Action, percentage, average paragraph, and longest paragraph.
The last two numbers are the percentage of the scene that is made up of parentheticals and shots.
Finally it lists the information you can also view by going to File, Properties. This gives you information about the script as a whole.
All percentages are based on the number of lines of text each paragraph has. Spacing between lines or length of the line is not taken into account.
Select Reports, Scene Graph… This gives you a picture of the flow of your script. Each bar in the graph is a scene. The width of the bar tells you how long the scene is. The height of the bar tells you what percentage of the scene is dialogue. If the bar is diagonally hatched it is EXT. If the lines are horizontal it is INT.
This can help you a lot in determining the flow of your script. The scenes that are a lot longer than the others - should they be that long? A lot of short scenes in a row - do you want it that choppy? A lot of tall bars mean the script is real talky there - do you want that? A lot of short bars is action packed - is that what you are writing at that part?
Select Reports, Character Graph… Then select HOWARD and select OK. This graph is identical except the bottom of each bar is vertical lines for the percentage of dialogue in that scene that is for the selected character.
This will show you if that character is talking too much or too little. Scene 16 shows that Howard has very little to say which is not right for his character. But checking scene 16 shows that it is an intercut where he is just on the phone for a short period.
Select Reports, Concordance… This creates a concordance for each character. A concordance is a list of all words used by a person, ranked by frequency. The list here does not include the words in concordance.txt (this includes words like and, of, the) - you may want to review these exceptions. It also does not include any word used once, which is generally ½ of the total words.
The characters are then ranked by how many words they have. If a character is not listed, then every word they said was either in concordance.txt or spoken only once.
Different characters should speak differently. Looking at Howard and Vivian here, we see that the most used word Howard uses is I’m and Vivian is rarely used which fits for a self-centered person. Vivian has Howard as the second most used word and both help and god in plentiful usage which fits a person being abused.
However, both make heavy use of let, need, god, I’ll. They are probably too similar in the words they use. Or to put it another way, at first glance they are different people. But on deeper inspection, it’s clear the same person wrote both of their lines.