Wish the article would note that he won the Oscar for the Forrest Gump screenplay, not Dune.
I kept rereading the article and wondering how he got an Oscar for a movie that was just released.
The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS
31–40 of 224 posts
Re: The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS
#32Would have been nice to hear about the actual process. How is the screenplay disseminated afterwards? Printed out and retyped by an intern on a modern machine or what? What is Movie Master, who made it, what are the features? Right now the article is nothing more that 'lol man used old software'.
>How is the screenplay disseminated afterwards?
He says, "I have to give them a hard copy. They have to scan it and then put it in their computers...".
>What is Movie Master, who made it, what are the features?
This isn't a tech article (Edit: It isn't a tech publication - it is a "tech" section of a popular publication) - they may research such details, but I definitely wouldn't expect them to. Even then, they did give us one interesting piece of implementation: It has a 40-page in-memory limit.
>'lol man used old software'
I didn't get this mocking tone from the article in the slightest.
Re: The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS
#33On the one hand, as a technologist, this pisses me off because we've advanced so far in the field of word processing. Autocorrect, holding more than 40 pages in memory, cut/paste, etc. Why does this Luddite persist in the old ways?!?!?! But as a writer who knows the pains of distraction... maybe he's on to something?
Maybe he doesn't want to have to create an account. Maybe he doesn't want to figure out how to disable cloud saves. Maybe he doesn't want to pay a subscription fee. Maybe he doesn't want emojis, mentions, hash tags and recommendations about what his friends are reading. Maybe he doesn't want a analytics report in his mail describing about how he used the software this week. Maybe he doesn't want "undoubtedly absolutely necessary telemetry" being reported. Maybe the old ways were better.
Re: The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS
#34On the one hand, as a technologist, this pisses me off because we've advanced so far in the field of word processing. Autocorrect, holding more than 40 pages in memory, cut/paste, etc. Why does this Luddite persist in the old ways?!?!?! But as a writer who knows the pains of distraction... maybe he's on to something?
It's hard to argue that feature advances have not come with any severe downsides, especially in UX, complexity, reliability, safety, and privacy.
Re: The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS
#35I used Wordstar to type up my school reports and newsletters (well into mid 90s) in an actual IBM PC with 640k RAM and no hard drive. I wasn't aware of the 40-page limit. Although it is entirely possible that I never had to encountere it.
Re: The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS
#36Would have been nice to hear about the actual process. How is the screenplay disseminated afterwards? Printed out and retyped by an intern on a modern machine or what? What is Movie Master, who made it, what are the features? Right now the article is nothing more that 'lol man used old software'.
> I have to give them a hard copy. They have to scan it and then put it in their computers and then I have to work through their computer because you can’t even email mine or anything.
Surely someone can write this fellow a program to convert to ASCII and a USB floppy drive to move the files, or better yet, an SD card IDE drive for his old PC.
Re: The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS
#37Are we going to see old refurbished devices be sold as distraction-free machines?
Does a new market for somewhat-luddite computers exist? I'd like to buy something like the freewrite [1] but cheaper, any suggestions?
Re: The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was considering to watch it this weekend. So you advise against it?
It's fantastic. Go see it in Imax if you can. Going to the theaters will help to get part 2 made.
they really did a number with this. they are getting regular old joes to ask other people to go to the theaters on HBOs behalf. i really gotta figure out how they did that, its pretty remarkable.
Re: The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS
#39I found some archive links about Movie Master, the software mentioned in the post above.
- https://web.archive.org/web/20001021145625/http://www.telepo...
- https://www.ibiblio.org/cdeemer/sic07.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/20001027005742/http://www.telepo... points out that the Hollywood Screenplay "uses the source code of the former Movie Master and adds improvements". It's probably referring to Movie Master Windows version though.
If someone would like to try, a Windows 95 version is available here: https://archive.org/details/goldutils018
Re: The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wrote a lot of code on a model M at my first job. I should probably get another, that thing was phenomenal.
The Unicomp Model M continuations are still good, as well.
im typing on one right now. i have to figure out how to clean the keys, some have some coffee stains :)