Screenwriting From Iowa

“It’s unbelievable we’ve been able to do something so big, so fast.”
Joe  Herber
Million dollar Doritos commercial winner in 2009
A lot has happened in the last 20 hours. Yesterday the world celebrated the fall of the Berlin Wall. Where were you in 1989? Do you even recognize the world from 20 years ago? Even if you [...]

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The great classical musican and conductor Itzhak Perlman was in Cedar Falls, Iowa last night to perform a fundraising concert for polio research. (He himself contracted polio as a child and uses crutches or a scooter to get around.) The violinist has played around the world and on many film scores including his work as [...]

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The other day I was driving to a shoot and listening to an old Robert McKee CD on screenwriting based on his book Story and I stumbled upon this little passage that made me stop and repeat it three times:
“Success in the Art Film genre usually results in instant, though often temporary, recognition as an [...]

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“I’ve never viewed myself as particularly talented. I’ve viewed myself as…slightly  above average in talent…Where I excel is with (a) ridiculous, sickening work ethic. While the other guy’s sleeping , I’m working. While the other guy’s eating, I’m working.”
Will Smith
Producer, writer, & two-time Academy Award nominated actor
60 Minutes Interview
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Did you know that before screenwriter Ernest Lehman wrote North by Northwest that he actually went to South Dakota to research climbing Mount Rushmore? It all started with a suggestion by Alfred Hitchcock who told him,  ”I always wanted to do a chase across the faces of Mount Rushmore.”
So Lehman took a train to Rapid City [...]

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Edger J. Scherick (1924-2002) is listed on IMDB as producing over 75 movies and documentaries including the ‘74 version of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three and the documentary He Makes Me Feel Like Dancing for which he won a Primetime Emmy in 1983.
“Audiences respond to, are touched by yarns spun around men and women [...]

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In 2006 the first person in more than 50 years to win back to back Oscar Awards in screenwriting was Paul Haggis. He then followed his award-winning scripts Million Dollar Baby and Crash with another Academy Award nomination in 2007 for his script Letters from Iwo Jima.
Haggis had a background in theater and construction before [...]

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According to IMDB Shane Salerno has co-written or re-written four films that have opened #1 at the box office; Armageddon, Breakdown, Alien vs. Predator, Shaft (though not always credited). He got a jump start in the business when he made an award winning documentary in high school that landed him on Larry King Live. That opened [...]

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Once upon a time in Hollywood…every film was shot on film. edited on film, and distributed on film. And once upon a time the studios that made the films also owned the theaters. It’s been a slow train coming but changes that began in the 50s & 60s are coming into fruition in our day.
When [...]

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Once upon a time…a 16-year-old farm girl from a small town in Iowa decided to parlay her good looks into an acting career in Hollywood. She ended up working as prostitute. I know that sounds like a classic cliche, but it wasn’t quite as it seems. For the farm girl was Donna Reed and she [...]

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