His Dark Materials…
Ladies and gentlemen, as of this moment, the human race has been granted supreme power over the universe. I know, I know, it’s a shock. But frankly it’s been a while since the wheel, and we were all just loafing around waiting for the next miracle invention to come along. This miracle invention hath taken the form of a program called Celtx.
Celtx is, to put it simply, power the likes of which mankind was not meant to have, compressed into a three minute download and a misleadingly innocent looking little button on your dock. Specifically, it lets you write stuff. But it allows you to do this in such a way that when you look back at how you used to write stuff, you see cave paintings.
It’s essentially just Microsoft Word for those who aren’t too formatting savvy. One simply needs to click whichever media one is writing for (film, audio play, theatre, plain text etc.) and then select whatever category of text one wishes to use and it formats it for you. Excited yet? Don’t worry if you’re not feeling like you’re sitting in the cockpit of a light-speed jet from the future. You are, it’s just that you only know how to turn on the air conditioning.
It’s all the mindless, half-useless junk that they fill the rest of the program with that excites me. I don’t really think that I’ll need a list of CGI effects for my Theatrical Script, but the fact that it’s there fills me with such a feeling of raw power… Of course, most of the features are actually pretty handy, and I can see myself using them to some good effect. But it’s the pointless stuff that makes you realize how ridiculously in control computers have made us.
Celtx, along with Final Cut Pro and Reason, make up my personal pantheon of horrifyingly complex programs. I haven’t even used Reason yet, but still… gah. With these three demi-gods of technology I feel I could script an avante-garde filme-noir masterpiece, film and edit it, and add an Elton John-worthy musical score in about twenty minutes, but I’d probably get side-tracked by all the pretty buttons. I feel tempted to participate in Script Frenzy just to take the application out for a test drive. It makes you feel like you’re an amazing artistic genius, even before you’re written anything.
Sadly, I wrote this huge rant without even being employed by Celtx. I honestly felt shocked by the huge implications of all the crazy abilities I had been given, and was bored enough to post details on my new supernatural powers up here.
So in summary, if you’re a Microsoft Word junkie like I am, get Celtx. Because whilst Word and InDesign and stuff are all on the same page, Celtx is reading the sequel. Whilst riding down a waterslide. And playing chess. With its feet – This post is officially over, as I have just had a remarkably stupid idea…
C. Logan Aube said,
March 28, 2009 at 12:03 am
“Ladies and gentlemen, as of this moment, the human race has been granted supreme power over the universe.”
I have to say, this particular quote made me stop and think.
Hmm…
Gari said,
March 30, 2009 at 9:15 pm
You haven’t used reason??
Heathanist.
I got to use reason last year in music… was good, If more than a little complex.
And, althought this should point probably be made in another comment, your giving Dom a password of yours??? This is an action akin to figuratively letting a baboon with ADHD drive your lear jet, as you should well know!
This, my friend, is going to get interesting.
foxsmoker said,
April 30, 2009 at 8:50 pm
(Dom. If I don’t log out, and you change your password, I’m still logged in! Suck it.”
Anyway, you want a complicated program? Try either FruityLoops, or try using a coding language. Make a game in flash or something.
foxsmoker said,
May 1, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Yeah, that’s complicated, but on the other hand, I’d rather make a hardcore FCP film than a blue triangle shooting the bigger green triangles. Also, I hadn’t actually changed the password till now, so we’ll see if you can still get in.