Archive for April, 2017
Apr
20
2017
 
‘I worked in a video store for like years…’Posted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From IowaI worked in a video store for like ten years, which is probably the best film school you can go to…and I get this phone call. They say, ‘My name is Andrea McCall and I work at Dreamworks. I read your script and I was wondering if you could come in for a meeting.’I went […]
Apr
19
2017
‘What matters to us is story…’—Posted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From IowaI’ve always felt that if you look at what lasts, in cinema and in art in general, it tends not to be a modernist or postmodern approach with ironic distance and narrative dysfunction. It would be easy for us to find self-reflexive poets from post-Virgilian Rome, but nobody reads them except for graduate students. In […] “Hollywood is a place where they’ll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul.” Marilyn Monroe James Gray is a working writer/director who back in 1994 made his first feature film at age 24, and his latest film (The Lost City of Z) is hitting theater this month. But […] “Every ring is a team story, and this is the Cubs story.” Miran Armutlu, Master Jeweler Last week the Chicago Cubs received their World Series rings. Everyone in the organization got a ring, not just the players. That’s a total of 1,908 pieces. That’s 1,908 stories. Here’s the only one I have a loose connection […]
Apr
16
2017
Postcard #123 (Golden Trumpet Tree)Posted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From IowaI took this photos a few days ago on the Valencia College campus in Orlando and it seems like a fitting colorful Easter day/springtime photo. It’s golden trumpet tree that blooms in the spring here in Central Florida. Especially pretty on blue sky days. Scott W. Smith
Apr
15
2017
April the giraffe gives birth (finally)Posted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From Iowa“One of the essential components of drama is tension…Drama, so said drama critic William Archer, is almost always the effect of ‘anticipation mingled with uncertainty.’” Writer/Director Alexander Mackendrick (1912-1994) Hot off the presses just minutes ago. How’s this for a beginning, middle, and end? Bringing an end to perhaps the longest continually running reality show. […] “The advice I give for filmmakers starting out is don’t wait for me. Don’t wait for the industry… It’s a mistake to wait for Hollywood to tell you you have a good idea. If you have a good idea, try to make it on your own as cheaply as possible… on your phone.” Producer Jason […] It’s interesting how a few words written by William Goldman in his Misery screenplay (based on a Stephen King novel), and translated more than 25 years ago into a movie with two actors (Kathy Bates, James Caan) under the director Rob Reiner can still make you squirm just thinking about it as the scene walks […]
Apr
13
2017
Screenwriting: Learn By DoingPosted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From Iowa“If you take the occasional seminar and come away with one great tip you didn’t know before, that’s a good thing. But I’ve come to believe you only learn on your own by doing it, by trying to tell stories that work. When you write 14-20 screenplays, you begin to internalize a sense of timing […]
Apr
12
2017
Avoiding the Q&A Interview Format on DocumentariesPosted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From Iowa“Documentary challenges you constantly to find a new way of telling a story. That’s what I love about it: to start a journey without knowing where I’m going to arrive. At first I have to encounter a place. Then within the place I have to encounter people.” Gianfranco Rosi One of the staples of documentaries […] |
