Screenwriting From Iowa

“You never know what’s going to be great and lasting. Everyone talks about being a writer, but sitting down and actually doing it is a much harder proposition. It’s like telling a filmmaker to get your hands on whatever you can. Don’t be a snob and say, you know, put yourself in debt for $20,000 [...]

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“When I write a script, I am telling a story that comes from my heart.” Matthew Weiner, 9-time Emmy winning writer/producer (The Sopranos, Mad Men) “He had a home, The love of a girl, But men get lost sometimes, As years unfurl” New York Minute Lyrics by Don Henley, Danny Korthchmar, Jai L. Winding I’m [...]

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“I guess what I like in my movies is where you see a character change by maybe two degrees as opposed to the traditional movie change of ninety degrees. I guess that always feels false to me in movies because that doesn’t truly happen. Around me, at least in the life I live, I guess [...]

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Scott W. Smith: What’s A Tale of Delight about? Edd Blott: A Tale of Delight follows Michael, an illustrator who’s living with post-traumatic stress disorder after seeing his wife tragically killed. It takes place during the holiday season a year later and explores how he is coping with grief while in the middle of what’s considered [...]

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One of the enjoyable things about writing this blog is being able to look at films and filmmakers of the past who have achieved great success. Of course, the great hope is that it will help the filmmakers of the future—or even the present. This week I’ll be posting two interviews I did with first [...]

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I did see The Hunger Games today and not having read the books the movie came across as a mix of Survivor, Shakespeare, and a soap opera—with a dash of  LOST, American Idol, and The Adventures of Robin Hood. And knowing that it was a trilogy did make it a little predicatable. But it was fun to watch an interesting cast [...]

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“Remember the old days, when movies were glorious, magical and mute? Neither do I. But the passing of the silent era from memory into myth is what ’The Artist,’ Michel Hazanavicius’s dazzling cinematic objet d’art, is all about.” A.O. Scott New York Times article The Artist (2011)  Yesterday I went to see The Artist for the third [...]

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Stephen Moramarco has what he calls, “my own instant* Screenplay formula— a way to create a structure for a feature film that you could make yourself.” The good news is it’s totally free—and it even comes with an asterisk; “*Results may vary.” Here’s Step Six: “The main character must CHANGE. A screenplay is a story, [...]

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“It’s amazing what M&Ms can do for morale.“ Steve Moramarco Actor, filmmaker and UCLA film school grad Steve Moramarco (@moremarkable) wrote an article last year in Indie Wire titled How to Make Your First Feature Film for $5,000—which just happened to be how much his first feature film The Great Intervention cost to shot and edited. [...]

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This one is for the quitters out there…or at least the ones thinking about quitting their screenwriting journey. The following quote is from a writer who last year had a script of his land on the 2011 Black List (The Imitation Game) before it sold for a reported 7-figure deal, and then he was attached [...]

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