ScriptHop has introduced Character Breakdown Tool, software that is designed to help agents, executives and creatives streamline the process of identifying and defining roles within a screenplay. The full multi-platform content management system will launch later in 2016.
ScriptHop claims it is offering an early insight into just one facet of the platform’s analytic capabilities with its Character Breakdown Tool, that is free for anyone to use, and is already being used by select industry insiders.
Founders Brian Austin and Scott Foster, who collectively bring more than 40 years of software and Hollywood experience to the project, founded ScriptHop as a way to offer film industry innovators the ability to intelligently manage and evaluate entire libraries of screenplays with its specialized software and patent pending script-reading technology. The platform will not only increase efficiencies, but will also significantly improve the discovery of high-quality works.
“Running a screenplay through ScriptHop’s Character Breakdown Tool generates an elegant, focused view of character information,” says Austin. “This gives the reader an immediate understanding of character qualities and narrative roles, which in turn makes the process of script-to-screen more manageable and efficient.”
“The Character Breakdown Tool helps the user identify characters by age, race, ethnicity and physical traits important for the purposes of casting,” says Foster. “It also produces a list of characters in the film ordered by how many lines of dialogue they have, while charting screen time and identifying levels of difficulty an actor may face during delivery and memorization.” Foster goes on to explain that, “the tool even grabs the densest portions of a character’s dialogue, helping you immediately remember who a character is. This feature’s simple ability to grab those moments offers an amazingly quick reference to characters, as well as to the author’s meatiest and most cathartic writing.”
Foster, an experienced Hollywood insider who headed the story department at United Talent Agency and has served as a producer on various projects, explains that automated character intelligence is incredibly useful to industry professionals who can use the tool and its spreadsheet export function as part of their workflow, boosting efficiency and accuracy, while providing more detailed information.
He said, “As someone who’s served in several roles within the industry, I’ve seen huge technological deficiencies in the infrastructure of the film business regarding literary content management. I feel passionate that, with this platform, we can solve that, while the A.I. brings new angles of insight to character, thematic through lines, and story that can actually boost creativity and help find those diamonds in the literary rough.”
For more information and to use the tool for free, please visit http://www.scripthop.com