From time to time I work on my Orpheus film project again. The last time doing this I found myself in front of many things to do with a huge lack of an overview. By accident I got a hint for a nice software called Celtx which helps you organise your media project. It's designed to be helpful with theatre, film, comic and audio book pre-production. I downloaded it and was willing to give it a try. Though looking very complex at first glance it worth to overcome the very first confusion. They included some examples of other people's work so if you don't understand the workflow instantly, they would help you to understand.

The pictures are links to bigger versions of the screenshots.

You have different areas for organising your data. There's a main catalouge for every project for an overview on everything. You could add a script and from its structure the software will derivate the storyboard's structure, for example. There you can upload pictures, add text and shots and reorganise the action. My favourite tool here is the play button, it generates a kind of Animatic and you can check your film for consistance and major mistakes in storytelling.


In the script itself you can mark actors or props as in a normal text editing software. It will appear in the sidebar on the right where you could choose if it's an actor or a prop or whatever. So if I mark Orpheus and label him an actor he'll appear in the main catalogue and I could add information there. Like contact information or in my case what the puppet must be able to do. Lovely piece of software...

It's seems to be very helpful to people working in bigger productions than to me and my one-man-crew. You could use it server-based as well and everybody registered could log in and see what he or she could do next. You could use its production timetable and handle all deadlines there. If you are going to use it with a bigger crew you'd have to pay for it. If you're going to use it on one computer alone it is for free. It's an open source project and the developers offer it for nearly every operating system. Like nearly anybody else, the developers blog regularly. I'm pretty sure I missed some good features so far but by having a close look to their website, you'll get any information you'll need.

Within one day I now have a clear view of what needs to be done, a beautiful and printable storyboard and an animatic. I now just have to do it.