Screenwriting From Iowa

Driving from Minneapolis to Cedar Falls feels like a long commute because the three and a half hour drive literally involves heading south on Interstate 35 and making one turn. It’s a pretty mellow drive. There’s not much worth looking forward to once you’ve made the slight detour to visit the Spam Museum in Austin, [...]

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I confess that when I was in my early 20s and was given some cassette tapes featuring Garrison Keillor I totally did not get his appeal. But somewhere on a long road trip I’m sure (as well as a few more years of life lived) I stumbled upon A Prairie Home Companion on some remote [...]

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Saturday afternoon in the Twin Cities I was able to pack enough fun into about a six hour period to last me for the rest of the year. I was in town to attend Emmy Night for the Upper Midwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. But I also saw that [...]

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And my last quote from Michael Hauge’s book Writing Screenplays that Sell comes in on the inspirational side and something worth posting above your writing area.
“100 percent of the screenwriters who now have agents at one time didn’t have an agent.
100 percent of screenwriters who are now working at one time weren’t working.
100 percent of [...]

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The only thing wrong with Michael Hauge’s Writing Screenplays that Sell is that it was first printed in 1991 so the film references are all old.    (At least that’s true of the version I have, and I don’t think it has been updated in the  30+ reprintings of the book.) But the tend to [...]

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I saw where highly regarded screenwriting teacher Michael Hauge will be teaching a one-day workshop in Minneapolis Saturday (9/26) and this offers a good chance for Midwest writers to get a taste of whom Shane Black (Lethal Weapon) said. “When I pick up the phone for help, Michael Hauge is the call I make.” He’s [...]

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Writer/director Robert Benton grew up in Texas where he suffered from Dyslexia, failed his only creative writing class before dropping out of college, but went on to write Bonnie and Clyde on his way to being nominated for six Oscars.
“Now it’s a side of my inability to deal with reality that I decided to be [...]

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“I need to know two people can stay together forever.” 
                                            Juno
 
Someone once said that in America we love to cheer victors as they enter the triumphal arches and then throw rocks at them as the [...]

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Last night I just caught a few minutes of the Primetime Emmy awards and glad to see Jessica Lange and Ken Howard win Emmys for their roles in Grey Gardens. The HBO movie also picked up the Emmy for Made-for-TV Movie. It’s always great to see someone like Howard who as been nominated for 10 [...]

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Chicago-born writer Larry Gelbart died on September 11, 2009 adding one more name to what I’m now officially calling the summer of death. Good thing fall starts tomorrow.
Gelbart had an incredible career. Just one of his success stories would be an amazing feat, but the fact that is he pulled them all off at such [...]

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