Fountain (markup language)
Fountain is a free and open-source plain text markup language that makes it possible to write a formatted screenplay in any text editor, on any device, using any software that edits text files.{{cite web |title=Fountain – A markup language for screenwriting. |url=https://fountain.io |access-date=13 November 2021}}
Fountain (which got its name from Fountain Avenue, the famous Hollywood shortcut[http://johnaugust.com/2012/introducing-fountain Introducing Fountain]: Asked for advice on the best way an aspiring starlet could get into Hollywood, Bette Davis supposedly replied, “Take Fountain.”) was inspired by John Gruber’s Markdown, and has its origins in two different and non-related projects: Scrippets, developed by John August and Nima Yousefi, and Screenplay Markdown, developed by Stu Maschwitz.
History
In 2004, screenwriter John August was looking for a Markdown-like syntax for formatting text documents into screenplay form. In 2008, he and Yousefi released Scrippets, a plug-in for WordPress and other platforms that allowed users to embed short sections of a screenplay in blog posts and forums, using formatting hinted from plain text.WordPress: [http://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-scrippets WP Scrippets]
At the same time, Maschwitz, software director of Red Giant Software and co-founder of The Orphanage, was working on a similar but more extensive project, Screenplay Markdown, that allowed plain text to be interpreted into a screenplay format.prolost.com: [http://prolost.com/blog/2011/8/9/screenplay-markdown.html Screenplay Markdown]
When August and Maschwitz realized they were both working on similar text-based screenplay formats, they decided to merge their projects, and the result was Fountain. prolost.com: [http://prolost.com/fountain Fountain]The Next Web: [https://thenextweb.com/dd/2012/02/09/fountain-is-a-new-markup-language-for-writing-screenplays Fountain is a new markup language for writing screenplays]NoFilmSchool: [http://nofilmschool.com/2012/02/john-august-stu-maschwitz-release-fountain John August and Stu Maschwitz Release 'Fountain,' a Handy Screenwriting Tool / Markup Language]
Implementations
Fountain has since been implemented in several popular text editors, word processors and screenwriting applications, such as BBEdit, Emacs, JotterPad, Scrivener, Slugline, Storyist, Sublime Text, TextWrangler, Trelby, Vim, Visual Studio Code, Writer and many others.
See also
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- {{official website|http://fountain.io}}
- [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Fountain Fountain on MediaWiki]
- [http://fountain.io/scrippets Scrippets]