Screenwriting From Iowa

When Tender Mercies came out in 1983 I was still in film school and watching that movie just left me in a daze. I saw it three times in the theater in its original release and numerous times over the years on VHS and DVD. Though Robert Duvall won and Oscar for his performance as [...]

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“Let me get one thing clear right now, shall we? There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing right at you out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the [...]

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“Reseachers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours.”
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When I came up with the title Screenwriting from Iowa in 2004 it was meant to be ironic. That is Iowa is one of the last places that people think of when they think of screenwriting and movie making. Of course, it was a set-up of sorts because right here in Cedar Falls, Iowa is [...]

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Writer Horton Foote died a few days ago, but his writings will live a long, long time. 
In 1962 he won an Oscar for the screenplay adaption for To Kill A Mockingbird. That alone is enough to be remembered by. Here are some things to consider about that movie:
Atticus Finch, played by Gregory Peck, was voted #1 [...]

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“Juno delivers uproarious laughs, fully fleshed personalities, honest uplift and tender moments when the throat goes dry and the eyes grow moist. Much of the credit goes to the deservedly acclaimed script by former Twin Cities scribe Diablo Cody, whose blogs-to-riches story seems destined to culminate in a spotlight solo at the next Academy Awards.”
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If you’ve read Malcom Gladwell’s bestselling books The Tipping Point and Blink then you are familiar with his interesting way of looking at the world. You may not always agree with his conclusions, but his observations are always thought provoking. His recent book Outilers is no different. In fact, it is the perfect book for [...]

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Walt Disney was a little like Moses. He never made it to the promised land. Disney died a few years before his dream project, Walt Disney World, opened in Florida in 1971.
I remember going to Disney World that opening year and it was magical. Central Florida was not the sprawling Central Florida that it is [...]

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This morning I had a video shoot in Pella, Iowa which if you have never heard about is a taste of Europe right here in Iowa. Not only in terms of the Dutch-inspired buildings, but it’s known for its Dutch letter pastries.
The town was founded in 1847 by Dutch immigrants and the word Pella means [...]

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“In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”
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