Archive for July, 2014
Jul
08
2014
 
Writer’s Discipline/Banker’s HoursPosted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From Iowa“I need silence. I turn off the phone. I turn off the email, and I just sink into that world and I disappear.” Screenwriter Stuart Beattie “I have kids so I have to be disciplined. I do [my writing] from 9 to 5:30 everyday, Monday through Friday—keep those banker’s hours. Otherwise I’d never get anything […]
Jul
07
2014
Simple Stories/Complex Characters (Tip #95)Posted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From Iowa“I’m a big fan of simple stories, complex characters.” Screenwriter Stuart Beattie
Jul
05
2014
Stuart Beattie’s 5 Page OutlinePosted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From Iowa“The best thing for me was reading other scripts and then writing, writing, writing.” Stuart Beattie on launching his screenwriting career Since 1999 Stuart Beattie has been screenwriting for a living. But before that success he wrote a dozen screenplays “and lots and lots of drafts of that dozen” that didn’t sell. He was working as […]
Jul
04
2014
‘Unbroken’ Louis Zamperini (2.0)Posted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From IowaTwo days ago Louis Zamperini died at the age of 97. July 4—Independence Day here in the United States—seems like a fitting day to repost what I wrote about him in 2011. The extraordinary life of the former World War II prisoner of war is the central figure in the Angelina Jolie directed movie of his life Unbroken that […] “thirtysomething was the first sort of comedy/drama on which I really figured out how to write. And that was due to the show runners and wonderful filmmakers, Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick. I wrote my first script for them, and they came to me and said, ‘really good script Paul, now what is it about?’ I […]
Jul
02
2014
“All stories are emotional based.”Posted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From Iowa“I think all stories are emotionally based. From comedies to action adventures. If you don’t have the emotional center of a piece then you lose everything else.” Writer/director Paul Haggis “I was carjacked in 1991 and we writers don’t react like human beings, rather than rage or anger I became curious about who these kids […]
Jul
01
2014
Who to Blame for Your FailuresPosted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From Iowa“In order to get any good at it you have to write and write and write. It took me a long time to get any good.” Screenwriter Paul Haggis (Collateral) “We’ve all had broken hearts—in life and in work…but being a writer you get to draw from that stuff…I think one thing I always did […] |
