Screenwriting From Iowa

“Winning takes care of everything.” Tiger Woods quote and now controversial Nike ad “It took me time to realize plot, characters and all that were important, but it really had to be about something.” Carl Foreman: “I read a lot of comedy screenplays and the disappointing thing—the reason most of them don’t work is because they’re [...]

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“You always want to start your story with the characters doing what’s essential to them. The most important thing to them.” Michael Arndt Little Miss Sunshine DVD Commentary Example of this are Rocky opens with Rocky boxing and  Arndt’s story Little Miss Sunshine of the opening shot of Olive being enthroned watch a beauty pageant on TV. [...]

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“One of my favorite films is LATE SPRING by Yasujiro Ozu. To me, it represents film as art.” Michael Arndt Interview with Writer Michael Arndt (Toy Story 3) Related post: Screenwriting from Japan Scott W. Smith Tagged: LATE SPRING, Michael Arndt, screenwriting, Toy Story 3, Yasujiro Ozu

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“A number of people who know my story have been quick to seize upon it as a rewards-of-virtue narrative–all that effort and persistence, they tell me, was bound to pay off. In this view of the world, character is destiny and success is the logical–almost inevitable–consequence of hard work, patience, and a shrewdly applied intelligence. [...]

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“I live in New York, I still rent an apartment in New York, and I taught myself to write living in New York. There is a tiny, tiny little industry there where I can be reading scripts there, but the idea of going to Los Angeles and being a struggling screenwriter in Los Angeles—I just [...]

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“I’m a huge believer that your story is all about your ending. So I would never write a story without knowing exactly, on a moment by moment basis, what’s going to happen at the climax of your story. I would never do that to myself. You don’t want to be grasping for an ending after [...]

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“Hopefully you enjoy what you’re doing [writing screenplays]. I’d written nine scripts and nothing had happened with them. I’m sitting down to write my tenth script—and I’ll confess it’s a silent slapstick comedy—and I’m like, ‘Why the hell am I doing this? This is completely insane to do this.’ But it’s just like— ‘Well, the [...]

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“I made this commitment to myself that I was going to be a writer. I figured, “Well I’m going to be a writer for the rest of my life.” I had a book I got just out of film school that was a writer’s guide and it was interesting because they listed the produced credits [...]

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If you look at the last decade of screenwriter Michael Arndt’s career it’s rather amazing. He won an Oscar for Little Miss Sunshine, then he wrote Toy Story 3 which was not only a brilliant screenplay but became a great movie that made over a billion dollars at the box office, he wrote the script [...]

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“I didn’t really expect that the script [Little Miss Sunshine] was going anywhere. I mean, I was hoping to get an agent out of it but I didn’t bother to register it just because I didn’t think anyone was going to see it. And then I had a friend of mine who was represented by [...]

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