Screenwriting From Iowa

“The only place we see Indians riding horses and living in teepees and speaking Indian is in movies, and I thought: this is where the majority of people get their ideas about native people. So I thought, there’s an idea for a film.” Filmmaker Neil Diamond CBS News interview with Stephanie Skeneris Early this year [...]

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“It would seem that the respect for principle and the love of one’s neighbor have become dysfunctional in this country of ours…” Marlon Brando’s unfinished Oscar Speech in 1973 You may have heard of the Bechdel Test or Rule where you judge a movie by three criteria: 1. It has to have at least two [...]

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“A Hollywood producer interrogated me. ‘Are the film rights avalable?’ he asked. ‘Well, yeah,’ I said. ‘But you know it’s a book of poems?” Sherman Alexie On phone calls he got after great reviews of his first book The Business of Fancydancing “In the 60s…all the hippies were trying to be Indians.” Smoke Signals Sherman [...]

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On Saturday I went to the Meskwaki Settlement near Tama, Iowa to shoot video footage (and a few still photos) of my first pow wow. The footage will be part of the DVD features on an independent feature that will be shot in area later this month. In the past I’ve actually gone out of my [...]

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“I would say I’m the greatest.” Usain Bolt “This is very good for the country.” Portia Simpson—Miller Prime Minister of Jamaica Jamaica stunned the world yesterday. Taking home the gold, silver, and bronze in the men’s 200-metres finals at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. I haven’t written about this year’s Olympics, because I hadn’t [...]

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“I do, actually [see most movies follow a three-act paradigm]. I see setting up the conflicts, escalating the conflicts, and resolving them. But I also learned a long, long time ago about ‘plot need’: Will Dorothy get home? Will Bogart get Bergman? What is Rosebud? It is why you sit in your seat, and, for [...]

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“Science has failed this world.” For the trailer from H+ “Humanity goes offline. Survival goes on.” Tagline on H+: The Digital Series website Back in the good old days of 2005 a new website emerged on the Internet called You Tube. The user-generated website quickly became a place to upload everything young people lip-syncing songs, [...]

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“Most parts in comedy, they’re not written for men. They’re written for, like, boy-men. So it’s cool to play a man-man. They don’t make adult movies anymore. Go to a multiplex. If Sydney Pollack was around today, he’d be directing episodes of ‘True Blood.’” Chris  Rock New York Times August 5, 2012 “Film 2 Days [...]

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“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you might nudge the world a little or make a poem that children will speak for you when you are dead.”  Oscar-winning screenwriter Tom Stoppard (Shakespeare in Love) Quite spoken by chacter Henry in The [...]

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“If you’re not hot in Los Angeles, it’s a very lonely town…It’s a lonely town even if you are hot.” Peter Bogdanovich “I’m not bitter. I ask for it myself. Success is very hard. Nobody prepares you for it. You think you’re infallible. You pretend you know more than you do. Pride goeth before the [...]

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