Guide › Getting started

Import a screenplay

Gilgamesh reads your screenplay and draws the scenes, locations and characters from it. Before importing, a report shows you what was found: nothing is created without your consent.

Accepted formats

Fountain (.fountain, .txt): the screenwriters' plain-text format, read as it is.
Final Draft (.fdx): the paragraph types (scene heading, action, character, dialogue, parenthetical, transition) are kept.
Word (.docx, 20 MiB at most): screenplay styles are recognised (Scene Heading, Character, Dialogue… or their French names); without them, formatting and indents decide. A line of dialogue can span several paragraphs.
PDF (30 MiB at most): it must contain text, not a scanned image. If you can select the words in your PDF reader, it works. Gilgamesh reads the page margins: the action, the character's name, their dialogue and their parentheticals each have their own indent. Page and scene numbers and continuation marks (CONTINUED, MORE, SUITE…) are removed.

Scene headings

Each scene starts with a heading, alone on its line, in capitals, its parts separated by a dash: the convention of screenwriting software (Final Draft, Fade In, WriterDuet).

INT. LOCATION - SUB-LOCATION - TIME - NARRATIVE TIME
INT. RAIL YARD - PLATFORM 3 - NIGHT - FLASHBACK

First INT., EXT. or INT./EXT. (I/E too).
Then the location, and if needed the sub-location after a dash: INT. APARTMENT - KITCHEN - NIGHT files the kitchen inside the apartment. (A full stop works too: INT. APARTMENT. KITCHEN.)
Then the time (time of the action): DAY, NIGHT, DAWN, MORNING, NOON, AFTERNOON, DUSK…
Then, if needed, the narrative time: CONTINUOUS, PRESENT, FLASHBACK, FLASH-FORWARD, OUT OF TIME, DAYDREAM. In brackets it is understood too: INT. STATION - DAY (FLASHBACK).
Times come from the project's conventions (Settings › Conventions: Time of the action, Narrative time), including the ones you add. Variants and both languages are understood (DAY and JOUR, NIGHT and NUIT, CONTINUOUS and CONTINU…), as well as common times with no convention (EVENING, LATER, SAME TIME…): the scene then has no time chosen, to be completed (Overview › Review flags it), or add that time to the conventions before importing.
A last segment that is not a time is a sub-location: INT. SHOPPING CENTRE - WASTELAND has no time. If it was one, touch that sub-location in the report ("Is this sub-location a time?"): the analysis takes it as a time straight away, and it joins your conventions (Time of the action) when you import.
Scene numbers are accepted, before or after, and removed: 12 INT. STATION - DAY 12, SC. 12 - INT. STATION - DAY. Gilgamesh numbers the scenes itself.
A line that starts with a full stop becomes a heading with no location: .CHILDHOOD MEMORY.

This is also the form of the title Gilgamesh gives each scene: a screenplay exported by Gilgamesh imports again as it is.

Characters

The name in capitals, alone on its line, just above the dialogue: it becomes a character of the scene.
Parentheticals after the name are ignored: ALBA (V.O.) stays Alba.
A line spoken together, ALBA AND BASILE (or ALBA, BASILE & CLAIRE), goes to each of them when they also speak alone elsewhere, or are already in the project; otherwise the name stays one character (THE CHILDREN). The report shows these shared lines.
A character who speaks elsewhere in the screenplay (or is already in the project), named in the action, is added to the scene even if they do not speak: in capitals or not, with or without accents ("Béatrice" joins BEATRICE's dialogue). The text itself stays as you wrote it.
These characters are in italics in the report. A name that is also a common word ("Rose", "The Others"): touch it ("Don't link it through the action?"); it stays a character where it speaks, and is no longer added where it is only named.
Always write a character the same way: "THE KING" and "KING" would make two characters.
A word wrongly taken for a character (THE END, INSERT…): touch it in the report ("Not a character?"); it disappears from the report and will be neither created nor cast.

What is set aside

Everything before the first heading: title page, synopsis, statement of intent. Copy them afterwards into the Overview or Notes.
Transitions (CUT TO, FADE OUT…) stay in their scene's text.

An example

INT. ASTRONOMERS' CLUB - DAY

Professor BARBENFOUILLIS strikes the lectern.

BARBENFOUILLIS
Gentlemen, the Moon is within cannon range.

NOSTRADAMUS
(rising)
Courage? What we lack is common sense!

EXT. MOON - CRATER'S EDGE - NIGHT

The shell tips over into the void.

Result: two scenes; two locations, the Astronomers' Club and the Moon with its sub-location, the Crater's Edge; two characters, Barbenfouillis and Nostradamus.

If the import gets it wrong

In the import window, "Show the text" shows the screenplay as Gilgamesh read it: correct a heading or a name, then "Analyse again".
After the import, everything can be fixed by hand: rename a location or a character, choose a scene's time.
Overview › Review flags what is still missing (location, time, text).