I use script(1) daily for creating papertrails:

  script -ec "command args" ~/$(date +%Y-%m-%d-%H%M%S_$$_script.txt)

Works out of the box on almost every *nix system.

The recordings end up as textfiles with the control sequences in, you can use commands like cat -v, grep or less -R on them. If you also record a timing file, you can replay it 1:1 on you terminal.