Working With Sunfrog:   Working With Lists - Importing a Script - Show Information - Breakdown Items - Locations - Contacts - Breakdown Sheets
Schedules - Reports & Call Sheets - Tutorial

Importing a Script

Overview

At present only script import is only supported for Final Draft.  Stay tuned for Movie Magic Screenwriter support, and a "generic" importer for Word and pretty much any other screenwriting program.

Sunfrog does not remove existing breakdown sheets or items before importing.  Therefore you will probably want to remove any existing breakdown sheets or items before you import.

If your script does not have numbered scenes, Sunfrog will automatically number them.  You may find this useful for testing purposes, but in practice it's strongly recommended that you add scene numbers to your shooting script.  Add the scene numbers to the left of the scene headings (such as "23. Int. Deli - DAY").

If your script refers to the same set by different names, such as "Deli" and "Bob's Deli", the set will appear twice in some of the reports.  Therefore, be sure to use your set names consistently in the script.  It may take a couple of rounds of tweaking the script before the script imports to your satisfaction.

 

Importing from Final Draft

In Final Draft, save your script as "RTF".  ("RTF" stands for "Rich Text File", a document interchange format developed by Microsoft).  For example, from Final Draft, select "File | Save As" and then select "RTF" from the file type dropdown list.

In Sunfrog, on the file menu, select "File | Import | Script".  In the File Open dialog, be sure to select "Final Draft RTF" from the file type dropdown.

Sunfrog will then import the script, showing progress on the status bar in the lower left hand corner.  

Categorizing the Breakdown Items

Sunfrog will make an "Educated Guess" as to what constitutes a scene heading, character, or other breakdown item in your screenplay.  After the import is finished, Sunfrog will navigate to the Breakdown Items List.  This is so that you can begin categorizing breakdown items recognized by the importer.  However, you may want to check that the Breakdown Sheets were imported to your satisfaction first (see the next section).  This is because if you re-import you will have to re-categorize all the breakdown items again.

Scene Headings are recognized by lines such as

23. INT. Deli - DAY
EXT. Shop - LATER THAT NIGHT
9. Int. Aircraft Hangar - Manager's Office - Thursday Morning

It's important that the final time marker is preceded by a dash ("-"), otherwise the importer won't know where the set marker ends and the time marker starts.

Characters are recognized by lines such as

                                   BOGART
                           You big putz!

If a character has no speaking lines, then the character will be processed as an "Uncategorized" item.   This is so that you can decide if the character belongs in the "Cast" or "Extras" category.  (Typically extras do not have speaking lines, while cast members do, but there are too many exceptions to automatically decide this).

Sunfrog recognizes other breakdown items by UPPERCASE notation in your script.  Any UPPERCASE phrase not already recognized to be a character, show title, or scene heading will be added to the "uncategorized" list.  These may include props, set dressing, sounds, costuming, camera direction, or other items.  TITLES typically go into the "Optical FX" category.  CAMERA DIRECTION can go into the "Shot" category.

Working with Imported Breakdown Sheets

As noted above, if your script refers to the same set by different names, such as "Deli" and "Bob's Deli", the set will appear twice in some of the reports.  Therefore, be sure to use your set names consistently in the script.  It may take a couple of rounds of tweaking the script before the script imports to your satisfaction.

If the script page and page count fields are blank, that means that Sunfrog could not determine those fields.  Page counts are always presented in eighths of a page (even if it is a half page, for example. 1 4/8).   Knowing your daily page count is one of the most important metrics of your shooting schedule, so it's strongly recommended that you update the page count / script page fields on your breakdown sheets with accurate values.

Create a Schedule from the Imported Script

After your Breakdown Items and Sheets have been imported to your satisfaction, you are ready to create a schedule.