Screenwriting From Iowa

“Writer-director Tom McCarthy is now 3-for-3 at Sundance thanks to his charming, surprisingly affecting dramedy “Win Win,” which is easily the best movie I’ve seen at Sundance so far.” Jeff Sneider The Wrap January 22, 2011 “Every week or two you’ll see a film that cost $100 million and, as likely as not, the script [...]

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“Filmmaking is a way to celebrate, but also ridicule, satirize, expose, exaggerate, compare, contrast and do all manner of inquiry into the darkest and most sublime corners of the human spirit , mind and society.” Filmmaker Ricado Scipio Interview by Christopher Wehner Screenwriter’s Utopia

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“I enjoyed doing the ‘Hurt’ video because I felt we were doing something worthwhile, that it was something kind of special.” Johnny Cash “There’s something about the juxtaposition of Johnny as a young vibrant man and Johnny toward the end of his life—we new there was something really powerful was going on there.” Hurt video [...]

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“Everything I do, I’ve never done before. Sometimes no one has ever done before.” Visual artist/director Rob Bliss “And in the streets: the children screamed, The lovers cried, and the poets dreamed.” Don McLean American Pie  How long does it take to make a mid-sized Midwest city in America the center of international acclaim? About [...]

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“Visceral emotions are the feelings we most want to experience while watching a movie, and the ones you want the reader to feel while reading your script. They include interest, curiosity, anticipation, tension, surprise, fear, excitement, laughter, etc, the epic films, the special effects, and the physical thrills we pay good money to feel. If [...]

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“Your bad guy must always be taking action. He’s always plotting. Planning, stealing, killing, wounding, belittling, or scraping cheese off your pizza. If the bad guy isn’t constantly making (more and more clever) moves, he’s not much of a bad guy.” William M Akers Your Screenplay Sucks!: 100 ways to make it great page 33 [...]

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Shaq failed. It’s that simple. Long before he announced his retirement this week—and even before he’d even won a single NBA championship— Shaquille O’Neal once stated that his goal was to win five championship rings…one for each finger. He ended up with four.  There’s nothing wrong with failing—as long as you aim high. And while [...]

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“I think what I’m trying to say is, ‘How do you preserve yourself in a world in which life doesn’t really mean much anymore?’ The trick, of course, is trying to say it so that it’s a good movie.” Paddy Chayefsky 1976 Interview with Dinah Shore about his movie Network I’ve read screenplays by Paddy [...]

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“My mother used to say, ‘Not a sparrow falls that God does not know.’” Robert McKee Story  Two days ago I mentioned seeing a small bird leave its nest and fly for the first time. It was a small but special moment that I was privileged to witness. This morning, just a few feet from where [...]

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“Hollywood lives and dies on something that seems new and original, but is very much like something that made money before. If you, as a writer, can figure out how to make that formula work, then you can become quite wealthy.” Screenwriter Michael January   Quoted in Tales from the Script  Related posts:  Movie Cloning (Part [...]

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