Screenwriting From Iowa

“I am here tonight to explain why no black people will ever be nominated for anything.” Richard Pryor at the 1977 Oscar Awards Since a major theme at the 2016 Oscar awards was a lack of diversity, I thought I’d show a clear and positive example of how that happens in Hollywood. “One of those […]

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  “From the moment I read Wil Haygood’s article about him in the Washington Post, I was moved by the real life of Eugene Allen.” Oscar-Winning Director Lee Daniels When I heard Wil Haywood speak last week about his journey writing The Butler: A Witness to History The Butler: A Witness to History, I was reminded […]

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“I was telling somebody yesterday that when I got to the airport in Cincinnati where I flew from that I ran into a friend of mine who I hadn’t seen in a while. And he had seen the movie The Bulter. And my friend Kevin— he and I hadn’t had the chance to talk about […]

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“People who have nothing to do with Des Moines drive in off the interstate, looking for gas or hamburgers, and stay forever.” Bill Bryson The Lost Continent: Travels on Small-Town America Not every kid who grew up in Iowa would one day have Robert Redford portray them in a movie. In fact, there’s only one […]

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“I would advice anyone who aspires to a writing career, that before developing his talent he would be wise to develop a thick hide.” To Kill A Mockingbird author Harper Lee (1926-2016) Scott W. Smith

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“Plays are about conflict. Plays are about people not getting along.” Edward Albee “Generally in a lot of my plays, two people are in major confrontation with each other, like in The Odd Couple or Barefoot in the Park or The Sunshine Boys.” Neil Simon In February of 2008—way back when I just started blogging and honestly didn’t know […]

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“Plays are about conflict. Plays are about people not getting along.” Edward Albee “Generally in a lot of my plays, two people are in major confrontation with each other, like in The Odd Couple or Barefoot in the Park or The Sunshine Boys.” Neil Simon In February of 2008—way back when I just started blogging and honestly didn’t know […]

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This post originally ran in September 2013: “It’s universality is obvious. Who among us, sometime in his life, hasn’t shared living quarters with another human being?…The play represented everyone in the world, including, I imagine, astronauts in space for weeks at a time.” Neil Simon on his play/screenplay The Odd Couple Today is history in the […]

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“With film you are closing doors. You’re telling a two-hour story, and you’re closing doors. With television you’re opening as many as you possibly can to leave yourself avenues for five or six years of storytelling.” Film & TV Writer/Producer  Melissa Rosenberg (Twilight, Dexter) Filmmaker magazine interview with Alix Lambert “TV is almost as different from […]

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“Take your favorite [television] show from the 80s—I promise you it sucks. So much of the writing has fled movies because it doesn’t take any wit, or intelligence, to write ‘more shit blows up…only bigger.’ They don’t want Paddy Chayefsky.” Frank Darabont Zürich Film Festival 2012 Writing for feature films vs. television is the Super […]

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