How do you see the future of screenwriting apps, either with Quote-Unquote or the industry at large? What hurdles do you hope to overcome? We now use a combination of Reamaze and Slack that lets us be very nimble, and takes a lot of the burden off Nima. You can talk about apps and websites pivoting, but once you’ve established yourself as one thing, it’s hard to change people’s perceptions.Īnother thing we were late on was robust customer support.
Many people still think of Highland as that thing that melts PDFs, when in fact it’s for daily writing. With hindsight, I would have been more ambitious about allowing Highland to be a “real” screenwriting app right out of the gate. Its minimalism really helps me focus on the words, not the formatting. But over the months, I found myself doing more and more of my daily writing directly in Highland. In fact, we added the editor pretty late in the process. We saw it mostly as a conversion utility. John August Highland was never meant to be a full-fledged screenwriting app. How do you feel it’s evolved since coming out in 2013? Knowing what you know now about making the app for screenwriters, rivaling staples like Final Draft, what would you have done differently - if anything? I want screenwriters to find the tools that work best for them. But I’m careful to never let it feel like an ad. But it’s interesting that so many app developers are also podcasters I love guesting on their shows.Īs someone who makes apps for screenwriters, it’s obviously helpful to have a platform like Scriptnotes for talking about what we make. I never expected it would get as popular as it has. John August Scriptnotes is sort of its own beast. How has that built a digital-first following for you that pairs well with digital apps for desktop and mobile? You’ve been doing the Scriptnotes podcast for a while now. I steer the ship, but I don’t run the engines. The challenge of the job is giving direction without stifling inspiration. I’m not a designer, but I know what I want it to feel like. I’m not a coder, but I’m good at whiteboard logic.
#Slugline cracked app mac how to#
I describe what I want, then we all collaborate to figure out how to achieve it. Between Ryan and Nima, there was a lot of app talent.Īs in film, I’m a writer and director for our apps. I’d hired Ryan Nelson to do web stuff, but he clearly had skills for everything visual. Nima agreed to do the coding work on Highland, then eventually joined us full-time in Los Angeles. John August Nima Yousefi had volunteered with an early web-based project called Scrippets, which ultimately grew into the open-source screenwriting format called Fountain (developed in partnership with Stu Maschwitz, who went on to make Slugline). How did you team up with developers and designers to create apps like Highland and Weekend Read? What’s your involvement with the actual apps - creative director or coder? It’s all about fixing the things that bug me.Īpps John Wants isn’t the most profitable niche in the App Store, but these apps genuinely help me with my screenwriting work, so they’d almost be worth it even if we never sold them to strangers. I wanted to read scripts on my iPhone without going blind, so we made Weekend Read. I needed to watermark fifty scripts for Big Fish, so we made Bronson Watermarker. Along the way, it became a great general-purpose screenwriting app.
#Slugline cracked app mac pdf#
I wanted to be able to take a screenplay PDF and melt it back down into a editable file. For example, I’m constantly looking up credits on IMDb, but the site kept getting more and more overloaded with ads and cruft, so we made the browser extension Less IMDb. John August Most of the apps we make are things I needed. John, you’re a successful screenwriter, so what led to making apps on the side with forming Quote-Unquote Apps? Here’s our interview with John and his lead developer Nima Yousefi on their work, their challenges, and their ideas for the future. Despite a handful of apps for screenwriters already on the market, they made Highland, Weekend Read and several others. Screenwriter John August wasn’t content with the tools of his trade, so he teamed up to make his own company - Quote-Unquote Apps - to deliver better results.
0 kommentar(er)
