FilmBase 1.3: a script editor built for screenplays

Screenplays are a strict format with seventy years of conventions baked in: where a character name sits, how dual dialogue shares the page, what a parenthetical looks like, how a scene heading reads. Version 1.3 ships an editor designed around those conventions from the first keystroke.

An editor that knows what a screenplay is

The editor understands elements. It knows a scene heading from an action line from a parenthetical, and every keystroke respects that.

The things you’ll feel first:

• Autocomplete that pays attention. Start typing a character name and the editor offers the ones already in your script. Same for scene headings. Your character stays “SARAH” in every scene, no matter how fast you type.
• Real dual dialogue. Two characters talking over each other render side by side, in proper columns, with selection and right-click working across both.
• Parentheticals that wrap themselves. Tab into one and the parentheses are just there.
• Cut, copy, paste that keep their shape. Element types survive the clipboard. An action line pasted into dialogue becomes dialogue; it doesn’t arrive as mystery text.

It also renders beautifully in light and dark mode, which sounds small until you’ve tried writing night scenes at night with a blinding white page.

Undo that stays in its lane

Version 1.3 scopes undo and redo to each page. Ctrl+Z in the script editor undoes your last edit in the script, not the budget change you made twenty minutes ago in another tab. The first time undo crosses modules and eats work, you stop trusting it everywhere — so in FilmBase it never does.

Final Draft, both directions

If you work with people on Final Draft (you do), the 1.3 exporter covers the full format: title pages, synopses, outlines, locked paragraphs, revision dates, character aliases. What leaves FilmBase opens in FDX looking like it was written there. Outlines and summaries import back in, too.

PDF and Final Draft exports now live in one dialog instead of two buttons in different corners.

Housekeeping you’ll actually use

The Project Hub picked up the tools people kept asking for: rename, duplicate, export a project as an archive, import one back. Productions are messy; “duplicate the project and try the recut schedule” should be one click, and now it is.

Auto-tagging rules moved into Global Settings and highlight their matches in the script as you type the rule, so you can see what a pattern will catch before you commit to it.

Why the editor matters this much

Everything downstream in FilmBase starts from the script: the breakdown, the schedule, the budget, the sides. Write in FilmBase and every one of those stays live-connected to the words on the page — change a scene and the production changes with it. That’s why the editor gets this much attention: it’s the front door to the whole production.

Thanks for using FilmBase. Found a formatting case the editor should handle? Tell us: [email protected]