Screenwriting From Iowa

It’s been a while since I took a screenwriting road trip so today seems like a good day. Yesterday I mentioned Louie Psihoyos and his Oscar-winning documentary The Cove which was shot in Japan so that seems like a fitting place to head.
My knowledge of Japanese cinema is limited but I know enough to say they [...]

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“Every cell of your body has to be aligned so that you’re making the best possible image.”
Photographer and Oscar-winning filmmaker Louie Psihoyos
His name is Louie Psihoyos. He won an Oscar Sunday. And he’s originally from Iowa.
That’s the short version.
If Louie Psihoyos doesn’t sound like a traditional Midwestern German Lutheran name to you, you’d be correct.  [...]

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Hitchcock loved The Hurt Locker? As in Alfred Hitchcock? Really? Hasn’t he been dead for like 30 years? Yes, I guess I should have said that “Hitchcock would have loved The Hurt Locker”—but that’s a long title, and less interesting. So why do I think the master of suspense and a psychological thrillers would have [...]

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“I devoted myself to writing for years without representation or a promise of anything. And there were times when I felt quite down about my prospects.”
Geoffrey Fletcher
Geoffrey Fletcher walked away with an Oscar for his first produced screenplay, Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire. That part is true.
But what is also true [...]

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Last week I was asked to do my first guest blogging by Debra Eckerling on her excellent Write On Online website. I appreciated the opportunity and wrote the following post after making the observation that there was a heavy dose of films beyond what is known as the thirty mile zone in L.A. (As a side [...]

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Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play.
Now I need a place to hide away.
Yesterday (Written by Lennon/McCartney, performed by The Beatles)
So you can wipe off that grin, I know where you’ve been
It’s all been a pack of lies
In the Air Tonight
Phil Collins
This week I’ve been touching on Oscar-nominated screenwriters leading up to the [...]

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So you can wipe off that grin, I know where you’ve been
It’s all been a pack of lies
Phil Collins
In the Air Tonight
This week I’ve been touching on Oscar-nominated screenwriters leading up to the Academy Awards Sunday. And while (500) Days of Summer didn’t get an Oscar nomination I wanted to give it a special [...]

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My last post was on Alessandro Camon who was a co-writer on the film The Messenger which is up for an original screenplay Academy Award . The other writer of that script was Oren Moverman, who also directed the film starring Woody Harrleson. I’m always interested in the impetus of an idea. I found this interview [...]

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It’s my job to be cleaning up this mess
And that’s enough reason to go for me
It’s My Job
Mac McAnally
A couple weeks ago I touched on Mark Boal’s Oscar-nominated script for The Hurt Locker which deals with a group of guys whose job is on a bomb squad during the war in Iraq. It was [...]

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Screenwriter/director John Lee Hancock earned an English degree at Waco University and a law degree from Waco Law School, both in Waco, Texas. His first credited film was in 1991 with a film called Hard Time Romance. In 1993 he wrote the script for A Perfect World which starred Kevin Cosner and was directed by [...]

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