Open Cine Prod Tools

Welcome to the guide for Open Cine Prod Tools, the open-source suite of film-production tools. This guide is for the people who make films — directing, producing, on-set logistics, staging — not for the application's developers; the technical documentation lives elsewhere, in the project's repository.

What the application does

Open Cine Prod Tools brings a production's tools together in a single window, from the first draft of the screenplay to the sharing of revenue. Each tool is a mode you pick at the bottom of the window:

• Screenplay — write and format the screenplay, in the Fountain format.
• Breakdown — read the screenplay closely and tag everything the shoot must provide (roles, sets, props, costumes…).
• Shot list — break each scene down shot by shot and record what each shot covers.
• Resources — the address book, the cast, the locations and the elements catalogue.
• Schedule — decide when the film is shot: days, slots, call times.
• Budget — cost the film, follow the cash, the financing plan and the revenue sharing.

A few principles

• Everything is local. A project fits in a single .ocpt file on your disk; nothing is sent to a server.
• One project, several episodes. A series, a mini-series or a film shot in parts all live in one file: one screenplay per episode, but one crew, one address book, one schedule.
• The screenplay is the source of truth. The Fountain text is the heart of the project; the other modes hook onto it.
• Everything is exportable to formats anyone can read: PDF, .fountain, spreadsheet workbooks.

Where to start

If the application is new to you, start with installation, then follow the first steps to create your first project.

About this guide

This guide's content is published under the CC-BY-4.0 licence: you may reuse, translate and adapt it, provided you credit the source. It comes in English and French; the language switcher is at the top right.