Archive for August, 2020

“Sometimes you need to get knocked down before you can really figure out what your fight is, and how you need to fight it. . . . The struggles along the way are only meant to shape you for your purpose.” —Actor Chadwick Boseman 2018 Howard University Commencement Speech Legacy. What is a legacy? It’s […]

Original Source…

Comments No Comments »

“All creative work is mystical. How dare they demystify it? How dare they think they can demystify it? . . . I was never conscious of my screenplays having any acts. I didn’t know what a character arc was.” —Screenwriter John Milius (Apocalypse Now, Big Wednesday) 2015 Creative Screenwriting interview with Erik Bauer

Original Source…

Comments No Comments »

Here are 23 examples of how Lin-Manual Miranda keeps the life or death stakes in the foreground of the first act of Hamilton. And has a healthy dose of foreshadowing in the background that will pay off in act two.: Aaron Burr in the second song: “Fools who run their mouths off wind up dead.” […]

Original Source…

Comments No Comments »

Let me tell you what I wished I’d known when I was young and dream of glory “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story” Lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda Two (of the many) remarkable things about the storytelling of Hamilton is how the creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, compressed the story down to 2 hours and 40 […]

Original Source…

Comments No Comments »

His rival, it seems, had broken his dreams By stealing the girl of his fancy Rocky Raccoon, lyrics by Paul McCartney and John Lennon After Lin-Manuel Miranda introduces the audience to Alexander Hamilton and his band of brothers in Hamilton, he then introduces and/or develops four additional characters. One thing I noticed that they all […]

Original Source…

Comments No Comments »

Hey yo, I’m just like my country I’m young, scrappy and hungry My Shot written by Lin-Manuel Miranda There’s a scene in Once Upon a Time  … in Hollywood where a young actress asks an older and fading actor who” reading a book,  “Where are you in the story?” It’s a question with a double […]

Original Source…

Comments No Comments »

“There’s no movie that can’t be told through its emotions. And there’s no movie that succeeds that is told any other way. In my opinion.”  —Billy Ray I want to sneak in one more post before stepping back into a run of posts on Hamilton (and the emotional “I want” song My Shot.) This is […]

Original Source…

Comments No Comments »

“[When I was in my early 20s] my father told me to read a book called Adventures in the Screen Trade by William Goldman. . . . It was just so insightful about how screenwriting actually works. And I think I imitated Goldman’s style in a pretty thief kind of way. Reading his screenplays really taught […]

Original Source…

Comments No Comments »

Here’s some quirky short videos featuring actress Winona Ryder in Winona, Minnesota. (Winona was actually born in Winona.) When I lived in Iowa I made occasional trips through Winona, MN which sits on the Mississippi River across from Wisconsin. These were part of a commercial for Squarespace that aired during the Super Bowl this year and […]

Original Source…

Comments No Comments »

I’ll continue my run of posts on Hamilton Monday. But today I wan to post a couple videos that Apple just dropped featuring writer/director Damien Chazelle (La La Land, Whiplash). A couple of years ago I did a presentation at a college and was asked what camera I was excited about most. I knew they […]

Original Source…

Comments No Comments »