Final Draft: How Marc Madnick Built the Brand That Changed Hollywood
By MacDirectory

It all started 25 years ago with a Macintosh Classic and a dream. But the dream wasn’t about software at all – it was about writing movies. Marc Madnick came to the West Coast to be a part of Hollywood and writing screenplays was his way in. Charismatic, determined, and creative, he started making connections and developing ideas for movies.

But when he sat down to write those ideas with his roommate and writing partner Ben Cahan, the frustration set in. The formatting for scripts was – as it is today – very stringent. Writers who failed to format their scripts properly were immediately deemed amateurs and even minor errors in margins or line spacing could result in problems during production. With the cursor of the Macintosh blinking at them every time they tried to remember the proper margins for an action sequence or montage, Ben said, “I can write a program better than this.” Marc immediately replied, “I can sell it!”

Little did the pair know that the program they created to solve the difficulties facing every working screenwriter would quickly become a vital part of the very infrastructure of Hollywood, changing the screenwriting business forever.

Now, 25 years later, you would be hard-pressed to find a feature film or mainstream television show that was not written using Final Draft software – the product that was once sold out of the back of Madnick’s car and is now managed from an impressive suite of offices in the rolling hills of Calabasas, CA. Originally developed for Apple Macintosh only, the program quickly became cross-platform. Downloads have replaced floppies as well as most boxes and CDs. But the essence of the work remains the same – make the screenwriting process as seamless as possible. And you can’t argue with the success of a program that changed the way the industry makes movies.

Though co-founder Cahan has moved on, 40 employees on two coasts work together to keep Final Draft evolving with the constantly changing needs of filmmakers. The website touts over 100 testimonials, many from some of the biggest names in filmmaking, including  J.J. Abrams, Tom Hanks, James Cameron, and Lawrence Kasdan, professing love for the company and the program that lets screenwriters “just add words.”

Colleges and universities across the country and around the world use Final Draft in their labs and consider a proficiency in the program an important part of their curriculum. Over 100 film festivals and conferences feature Final Draft as a sponsor and proudly award the program as a prize to their winners and finalists.

To add to Final Draft’s reputation as the industry standard screenwriting software, last year the program was honored with a Primetime Engineering Emmy Award for contributions to the television development process. One of the most important features of Final Draft cited, if not the most important, is pagination - the page numbers in a script are the same whether you are working on a Mac or PC or iOS device. Pages ready for production can be locked and exported to scheduling and budgeting software in a matter of a few clicks, ensuring everyone in the production process is literally on the same page – a feature that filmmakers rely on every single day.

Having grown his business into so much more than desktop software, Madnick still keeps his eye on how the filmmaking industry is changing and how Final Draft needs to change with it. To that end his team developed a suite of mobile products that allow writers to read, write and edit on the go using their iPads, and, soon, even their iPhones. Final Draft Reader is a free app designed to allow actors, agents, and managers to read Final Draft scripts on their iPad and iPhone. Final Draft Writer features many of the desktop application’s robust features, including tab and enter quick-navigation while writing, SmartType that remembers your character names, scene headings, Cast Reports, Scene Reports, and Location Reports that writers and crew alike find indispensible.  With easy Dropbox integration, sharing a script file between your tablet and desktop, or with your production team, is seamless. The mobile products also feature cross-platform pagination, ensuring that screenwriters stay on the same page no matter where they write, so long as they use Final Draft.

Madnick’s vision for his company did not stop at software, and he knew that to be truly successful you had to be a real presence in the moviemaking industry. And so over a decade ago he created the Final Draft Hall of Fame Award that has been bestowed to such inductees as Oliver Stone, Nancy Meyers, Robert Towne, and Aaron Sorkin. In addition to the Hall of Fame, the Final Draft Awards event now includes the Screenwriters Choice Awards, where the best film and television shows of the year are lauded. Unlike guild award shows, all Final Draft users, both professional and aspiring, vote for the Screenwriters Choice winners. Conducted at the beautiful Paramount Theater on the Paramount Lot, the Final Draft Awards also honor newcomers to the screenwriting industry. The winners of one of the best-known screenwriting contests, the Final Draft Big Break Contest, are announced and introduced to the industry where they mix and mingle with some of the best-known talent writing screenplays today.

With an impressive track record of 25 years in business developing the same product, Marc Madnick and Final Draft are looking toward a bright future. Exciting features are planned for upcoming updates and new versions of this industry mainstay. As the needs of the screenwriting community continue to evolve, Final Draft will be there with them, the most vital tool in the screenwriters’ arsenal.