Screenwriting From Iowa

As a dreamer of dreams and a travelin’ man I have chalked up many a mile Read dozens of books about heroes and crooks And I learned much from both of their styles  Jimmy Buffett Son of a Son of a Sailor  Jimmy Buffett will be playing in Iowa Tuesday night. The Des Moines Register [...]

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      “On my first night in Vienna, Jonathan [Carroll, author of Bones of the Moon] walked me down to the Danube, where we sat on a flight of steps leading down to the river. The dog walkers were out in force. Greetings were exchanged with small movements of the eyes, and the dogs sniffed [...]

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“In 1928 I lost everything I had, and in 1936 I went broke again. So did most of the other soundly advised people in the county…I lost very little money through extravagance, I regret to say. Most of my losses were the result of the dubious pleasure of remarking over the phone, ‘Yes, go ahead.’” [...]

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Playwright and screenwriter Samson Raphaelson would have been 54-years old when he guest taught a class one semester at the University of Illinois at Urbana back in 1948. At that time, along with his play (The Jazz Singer) that was performed over 300 times in Broadway, he had more than 25 feature credits as a [...]

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Back in January, I wrote a post about The Jazz Singer and how that movie was based on a Samson Raphaelson play and short story. The Jazz Singer was Raphaelson’s first film credit, but he went on to write and gain credits for more than a total of five decades. His two most well-known scripts were [...]

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“Keep a good head, and always carry a light bulb.” Bob Dylan “Every creative journey begins with a problem. It starts with a feeling of frustration, the dull ache of not being able to find the answer.” Jonah Lehrer Bob Dylan had just turned 24-years old when he wrote the song Like a Rolling Stone, [...]

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Were you ever in the valley When the way is dark and dim? Cup of Loneliness Lyrics by George Jones and Burl Stephens  How does it feel  To be without a home…  Like a Rolling Stone/ Lyrics by Bob Dylan “I have been watching my life…it’s right there. I keep scratching at it, trying to [...]

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This week I picked up the just published book Writing in Pictures: Screenwriting Made (Mostly) Painless by Joseph McBride. He’s the perfect person to pull a quote from on this blog because he’s had an interesting career, which actually got a kickstart start here in the Midwest. As a student at the University of Wisconsin [...]

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I just started a book on tape this week that you HAVE TO GET. It’s called Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer. I’m sure I’ll be pulling quotes from it for weeks to come. Lehrer cracks open a glimpse into the inner workings of how creativity works at Pixar: “Everyday at the Pixar studio [...]

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Did you know that perfection has deep roots in Tangipahoa Parish? You know, down in Southern Louisiana. In the communities of Tickfaw, Hammond, Natalbany is where Baylor girls basketball coach, Kim Mulkey, was raised. Last night as she led her Baylor Bears to a National Championship and they did something that no team in the history [...]

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