Does your screenplay have a silver lining?
I try not to be a bandwagon blogger. However, a few screenwriting blogs have mentioned scriptclouds, and I couldn’t help myself.
The concept is that you can enter a .txt file of a script you have written, and you will get out an analysis of what words are most frequently used. It does an oddly accurate job of conveying the feel of a story, actually. Plus, you can see if you’re overusing words you don’t mean to, or if your verbs are too common.
I decided to test it out with my TV pilot, the last script I’ve written that I consider polished. I also ran my current, half-written feature screenplay through for kicks. Here are the results:
This was my TV pilot, Fat Guy, Hot Wife.
Yes, I’m comfortable with the fact that “avocado” seems to be the biggest word. Quite comfortable, in fact. I would be disappointed if it weren’t.
My road trip screenplay came up like so:
A friend has pushed that this screenplay should be called Nerds in a Van. It would seem that the cloud gives him some support.
I am a little disappointed that “walks” is so big in both clouds. A thesaurus will be necessary. But overall, I like to believe my writing is about innocent sexiness and awkward people trying hard but failing (at least for 90 pages.) I can sorta see that in the clouds, so hurray.
The site that generates these clouds for you also has examples from famous movie scripts. Check it out for yourself at http://scriptcloud.screenplayanalytics.com/.
jane on
March 28th, 2007 at 12:30 am
Thanks for blogging my site. I like to think of the cloud as a kind of fingerprint of your script. “Walks” was actually the biggest word in one of my scripts so I think there is something to think about there, as you say, in terms of using more varied verbs in scripts. I hope to be adding new stuff to the site over the next few weeks so check back in a couple of weeks. Thanks.
Stewart McKieReply – Quote