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Nabu

You already have the film in your head.

Nabu holds the rest of it together.

Story-aware screenwriting software that gets you to the last page. Work out the scenes on the corkboard, write the pages, and let Nabu keep track of continuity and threads.

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Private alpha. By invitation.

EXT. THE CANAL QUAY – DAWN

A barley barge noses out of the mist. A child’s crooked heron is cut into its prow.

KALLA (19), a junior scribe of the temple granary, sits on the bottom step with wet clay in her palm.

The heron barge bumps the step. Kalla’s stylus stops.

Beside the tally, small, she presses her father’s name.

She looks at it. Then she smooths it out with her thumb.

The heron barge’s rope carries the temple’s seal now.

KALLA

(under her breath)

Field at the canal bend. Barley. Thirty measures.

She presses the figure into the smudge where the name was.

Over the roofs, the temple drum. Two beats, then one.

Behind the heron, more barges come out of the white, their poles knocking the bank.

For every barge, one wedge. She doesn’t look up to count them. She hears them.

The steward’s boat slides past the barges, fast and light, three sealed jars in its bow.

AHUNI (30s), the steward’s boatman, works the pole in a cloak no boatman can afford.

AHUNI

Morning, Kalla.

KALLA

(not looking up)

Forty-one.

AHUNI

I’m not barley.

KALLA

Forty-two.

He laughs and lets the current take him.

Porters empty the heron barge basket by basket, and it rises in the water.

Nisaba · Continuity

Scene 1 · EXT. THE CANAL QUAY – DAWN

This drum also sounds at dusk in scene 17, page 47. If it marks both dawn and dusk, the last page will not read as a return to the first.

“Over the roofs, the temple drum. Two beats, then one.”
ResolveDismissDiscussR / D / Esc
Nabu, with a sample screenplay open

One screenplay. Pages, notes, threads, characters, locations.

They stay linked, so you can start from any of them and trace it back through the whole story.

A note opens its passage. Scene 17, page 47: the note’s passage is marked on the page.

Script DoctorNotes · 25 open
In the draft · p. 47
Scene 17 · EXT. THE WATER STAIRS – DUSK47 of 118
AHUNI
Seed for the far fields. That’s all it ever was.
Kalla drains her cup and turns it over on the bench.
EXT. THE WATER STAIRS – DUSK
Kalla takes the water stairs two at a time. Behind her, over the roofs, the temple drum. Two beats, then one, then nothing.
KALLA
The steward’s seals. Kish. You had the route before I had the tally.
AHUNI
I knew enough. The rest I was hoping you might never have to read.
She stops. The river is the color of unfired clay. Past the reed beds, the last light goes out of the water.
KALLA
Then say it plainly. Once.
Threads
The temple drumPaid off
object / motif
On the page

Sc. 1 sets up “The temple drum”, paid off in Sc. 31.

  • Sc. 1 – EXT. THE CANAL QUAYOver the roofs, the temple drum. Two beats, then one.
  • Sc. 17 – EXT. THE WATER STAIRSBehind her, over the roofs, the temple drum. Two beats, then one, then nothing.
  • Sc. 29 – EXT. THE WATER STAIRSShe turns around. Over the roofs, the temple drum.
  • Sc. 31 – EXT. THE CANAL QUAYOver the roofs, the temple drum. Two beats, then one, then gone.
BoardFreeform
Scene 31 · EXT. THE CANAL QUAY – DAWN118 of 118
EXT. THE CANAL QUAY – DAWN
Mist on the canal. The first barge comes out of the white.
Kalla sits on the bottom step with fresh clay on her knee.
Iltani comes down the steps with Kalla’s debt tablet and a receipt under the temple’s seal.
KALLA
Paid?
ILTANI
Paid, Kalla. All of it.
Iltani breaks the old tablet in two.
Over the roofs, the temple drum. Two beats, then one, then gone.
Kalla presses the first wedge of the day.
FADE OUT.
Select a window, or choose another note in Script Doctor.Tap to explore

Form the idea into a screenplay.

Start with a premise, a character, a scene or a question. Nabu’s guided development takes you through a synopsis, a treatment, sequences and a scene-by-scene plan.

Wet Clay’s premise, synopsis, treatment and sequences, ending in a scene-by-scene plan of 30 scenes.
Guided development, recorded in Nabu. A recording of Nabu’s guided development on another film. A premise is typed in, a choice of pitches arrives and one is chosen, the synopsis and treatment take shape, then the key scenes are built into a plan that lands on the board.

The plan’s thirty scenes land on the board, and the question it left open becomes scene 18.The plan lands on the board, one card for every scene.

Block out the structure.

Put a scene on the board. Move it between sequences as the shape changes.

Wet Clay’s scenes laid out as cards across five sequences. A new scene 18 is sketched and placed in Seed grain.
The corkboard, recorded in Nabu. A recording of the corkboard: sequences blocked out in color, a scene sketched in a sentence and added to the board, then the same scenes waiting in the screenplay editor.

A screenplay editor built for the writing.

The editor with two modes: speaking scene 29 into the page, and a vomit draft cleaned into scenes 10 and 11.

Use the microphone button to stop or replay.Tap to explore

Nabu’s element-aware dictation sorts what you say into scene headings, action, characters and dialogue as you talk.

Nabu quiets the interface so nothing nags you. Afterwards it helps you clean up, fills in the scene and character details, and checks the work.

Every element on a key.
Enter and Tab walk from one element to the next, and ⌘1 to ⌘6 set any of them.
Dual dialogue.
⌘D pairs a character’s line with the one before it.
Scenes and sequences.
The navigator follows your sequences, and ⌘G goes to any page or scene.
In and out.
Final Draft, Fountain and PDF import and export.
Multiplayer. Coming soon
Write the same draft together, with a co-writer or anyone making the film with you.

Find the threads you left hanging.

Nabu tracks continuity, each character’s voice, and the story threads, and shows you where a setup is still waiting.

Script Doctor checks the whole draft.

Open a note to go straight to the passage.

Script Doctor’s queue: contradictions, things worth a look, and the writer’s own notes. The selected one opens scene 17, page 47.

Tap to explore

Open the passage a note is about.

The passage is underlined in the note’s color, with the note beside it.

Page 47 of Wet Clay with notes underlined beside the passages they mark: the temple drum and Ahuni’s hedge.

Hover or select an underline to bring its note forward.Tap to explore

Threads, from setup to payoff.

Track each story thread throughout the screenplay. You always know where you’re going and what still needs to be paid off.

The threads list: Iltani’s tablet, the temple drum, and what was in the jars. The Dynamics chart sits behind.

Hover a thread to light its scenes.Tap to explore

Catch the lines that don’t sound right.

Nabu builds a voice fingerprint from a character’s dialogue and marks where the voice drifts.

Ahuni’s character page with his voice fingerprint. Two measures are flagged as drifted: turn length and hedge balance.

Pick a character, or open Dialogue to read their lines.Tap to explore

Coverage with scene numbers.

Reviews structure, pacing, continuity and character voice, and ties each finding to a scene and page.

The coverage report for Wet Clay. A hot spot at scene 17 marks the confrontation at the water stairs, page 47.

Select a page to bring it to the front.Tap to explore

Who we are

We’re filmmakers. We’ve always had stories we’d love to tell, but we’ve had moments where we felt too intimidated by the craft of screenwriting to reach the last page, or sometimes even to begin.

Forming our film idea into a structure, arcs and sequences, and keeping everything moving while holding continuity solid seemed like impossible tasks. So, we built Nabu to help.

We built this tool for us. And you.

Get in touch

Before you begin.

Something else? Write to us.

Can I start from an idea instead of a draft?

Yes. Nabu’s guided development can start from a character, a scene, a question, or a single sentence.

Can I bring in a screenplay I’ve already started?

Yes. Import a Final Draft, Fountain or PDF screenplay and keep writing it in Nabu.

Can I use Nabu just to write?

Yes. The screenplay editor stands on its own, and the board and the story tools are there when you want them.

How does dictation work?

Turn on the microphone in the editor and speak the scene. Say “new scene”, “character Kalla” or “scratch that” to steer it, and “done” to have what you said cleaned up into formatted pages.

What does Vomit draft do?

It quiets the interface while you write. Afterwards Nabu cleans up the draft and fills in the scene, character and arc details.

Can I write with someone else?

Multiplayer is coming. Until then, you can export a draft as Final Draft, Fountain or PDF to share it.

What do I need to use it?

A web browser. Nabu works on a computer, a tablet or a phone, with nothing to install. A macOS app is coming.

How do I get in?

Nabu is in private alpha, by invitation. Request early access and tell us about your film.

Every screenplay ends with the same two words.

Nabu is story-aware screenwriting software that gets you to the last page.

Request early access

Private alpha. By invitation.