Screenwriting From Iowa

Minnesota-born writer Sinclair Lewis knew more about just writing when he wrote, “Winter is not a season, it’s an occupation.” Unfortunately it doesn’t pay well. In fact, it can cost you money.
After five years of living in the Midwest this really hit home over the weekend. After being on the road shooting footage for a [...]

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Let’s put political views and rhetoric aside for the day and just step back and look at this moment.
Just a few minutes ago Barack Obama became the first African-America president in the history of the United States. 
To put this in perspective when Obama was born in 1961 the Voters Rights Acts that allowed blacks to [...]

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How about that Kurt Warner? If you don’t follow pro football you may not know that his underdog story is one of the greatest in sports history. And now, with a win in yesterday’s playoff game, the 37-year-old adds another chapter to his hall-of-fame career by leading the Arizona Cardinals to the Super Bowl. If [...]

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How about that Kurt Warner? If you follow pro football at all you know his underdog story is one of the greatest in sports history. And now the 37-year-old adds another chapter to his hall-of-fame career by leading the Arizona Cardinals to the Super Bowl. If you like comeback stories Kurt Warner is your guy. [...]

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On this day in 1859 the local paper where I live was established. As The Courier turns 150 today I want to look at its most famous reporter, Sinclair Lewis. Yes, the novelist, playwright, short story writer Sinclair Lewis worked for a brief time in Waterloo, Iowa before going on to publish over 20 books [...]

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Though screenwriter Robert Siegel grew up in New York, he got his Midwest roots by graduating from the University of Michigan and then made headlines in Madison, Wisconsin. Literally. As the editor for the great fake newspaper The Onion Siegal came up with those crazy headline.
But after 13 years he quit and began to write [...]

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This has been an unusual week for plane crashes. First there was the guy who jumped out of his plane to fake his death and then the crash yesterday of Flight 1549 that landed in the Hudson River.  When was the last time the news was about two airplanes crashing in the same  week where [...]

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Yeah, it’s kinda cold throughout the Midwest these days.  According to the weather channel’s website as I type this it’s -13 and feels like -35 here in Iowa. Is that legal? 
The cold weather is one of the reasons that half the people in Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin drink so much and why the other half [...]

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“The marks of the artsy-craftsy film are withholding basic exposition and leaving the viewer confused. The illusion of profundity is not the same as being profound.”
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“Characters should primarily be revealed through behavior, not dialogue.”
                                                  Linda Stuart
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