Sides and distribution

Getting a screenplay to people is the point at which it stops being private, so this is the part worth doing deliberately.

Sides

Sides are the pages for one character — only the scenes they appear in. Choose the character, name the recipient, and ScenePaper pulls their scenes out of the current revision and builds a PDF.

Send sides rather than the whole script unless there is a reason not to. An actor needs their scenes; a full screenplay in fifty inboxes is fifty ways for it to end up somewhere else.

Distributing

You can send up to fifty recipients at once, choosing whether they get the full script, sides, or the call sheet script. If you choose sides, you have to say which character — the product will not let you send sides without one.

Each copy carries:

- A watermark with the recipient's name. - A unique tracking code, in the form SP- followed by twelve characters. Every copy is different, which is what makes a leaked page traceable to the copy it came from. - An expiry, optionally — anything from a day to a year.

The log

Every distribution is listed with its tracking code, who it went to, its status (active, expired or revoked) and how many times it has been downloaded, including the last time.

Two actions from there: revoke it, which stops the download working immediately, or extend the expiry if somebody genuinely needs longer. A revoked link fails for the recipient and says so.

What this does and does not prevent

Watermarks and tracking codes are deterrents and evidence, not locks. Someone who can open a PDF can photograph the screen. What the system gives you is the ability to say which copy a leak came from — which is usually enough, because most leaks are careless rather than deliberate.

For what happens to the script while it is stored, and the honest limits of that, see who can read your script.

Back to the manual.