“I’m self-taught. I learn everything by doing it. I wasn’t born knowing how to write a play. You do it and hopefully you keep evolving. One really great thing happened was that I discovered Chekhov’s short stories.” Sam Shepard When I was in film school back in the early eighties I don’t think there was […]
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Archive for July, 2017
Jul
31
2017
 
Tim Raines in the Hall of FamePosted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From IowaTim Raines was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame today. Born and raised in Sanford, Florida I was fortunate to enough to see him play high school baseball and take photos of him his rookie season with the Montreal Expos when I was a 19-year-old photojournalist for the Sanford Herald. Looking back over […]
Jul
29
2017
Sequence Writing via The Script LabPosted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From IowaAs a follow-up to yesterday’s post Sequence Writing (Tip #105) I found these videos produced by The Script Lab which you may find useful in exploring the sequence method of writing further: Scott W. Smith
Jul
29
2017
Spaceships. For Earth. In Iowa.Posted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From IowaWay back when I started this blog in 2008 I did so while living in Cedar Falls, Iowa. A town of 35,000 and if known by anyone outside of Iowa it’s probably because it’s home to the University of Northern Iowa (UNI). Sports fans may know of UNI because it’s where Pro Football Hall-of-Fame QB […] “The sequence method doesn’t just make a screenplay better; it also makes it easier to write. Sequencing helps clarify character motivation and drive, and illuminate which scenes are dramatically necessary and which are irrelevant.” Screenwriter Andrew W. Marlow (Air Force One, Castle) “A typical two-hour film is composed of sequences—eight-to fifteen-minute segments that have their […] “I’m more of the sort of Lars von Trier Breaking the Waves school. The movie [Lion] is primarily an emotional journey, and the movies that matter to me, you experience them here, in the heart and the gut. They’re not such intellectual exercises as visceral and emotional experiences.” Screenwriter Luke Davies (Lion) “I made mistakes […] There is a lot of luck to [breaking in], but I also do have to say I wrote a lot. By that time I sold [the screenplay] August Rush I had written 11 feature films—maybe 12. I think you know my philosophy, it’s not write about what you know—it’s write about what you know hurts. […]
Jul
24
2017
Love and Torture in ScreenwritingPosted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From IowaYou’ve got to have a story and characters the audience will love. [Oscar-winning screenwriter] Callie Khori invited me to speak to the screenwriter’s guild and she said ‘you make a movie by making the audience love the characters and then you torture them.” Dr. Art DeVany (Former UCLA economics professor who created mathematical and statistical models to […] I did a binge watch of The People v. O.J. Simpson over the weekend and finished all ten episodes in three days. It was a remarkably well crafted production of a sad chapter in recent American history. It captivated the country in a pre-internet saturated world, and in terms of celebrity, money, power, injustice, domestic viloence, sexism and […]
Jul
22
2017
Six Months to the Finish LinePosted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From Iowa When I started this blog I didn’t have any long terms plans. I certainly didn’t think that 9 1/2 years later I’d still be writing blog posts. I mentioned in January my plans to end this blog on the 10th anniversary of this blog which is six months from today. That’s still my […] |
