Screenwriting From Iowa

“When you’re saying you want to be a filmmaker, you’re saying you want to communicate.” Robert Rodriguez Last Friday I went to a brief 911 memorial and ended up treating the day blog wise as a Holiday or weekend when I don’t normally post. But I did think back to where I was when I […]

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“Sometimes the only way across the river is by slipping on that first rock—that’s the way there.” Producer/writer/director Robert Rodriguez on failing and moving on Several years ago (in a pre-GPS time) I was on a video shoot in Cape Town, South Africa and was told by a local some advice that I’ve often found helpful. […]

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“Without a network, creative work does not endure…without Paris, there is no Hemingway.” Jeff Goins The Unfair Truth About How Creative People Really Succeed Filmmaker Robert Rodriguez has his filmmaking network of people down in Austin, but he also has a literal network—El Rey Network. And when you own a network you can line up interviews with […]

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“We rarely know where we’re going: writing is discovery.” Robert McKee Story, page 113 “I think Julius Epstein—not about Casablanca—but somebody asked him about structure, and an outline and whatever and he said, ‘You know, I write page one, if I like it I’ll write page two. If I like page two I’ll just continue to […]

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“I don’t mind failing, I just like failing in front of a bunch of other people.” Robert Rodriguez (On why he shot El Mariachi in Mexico as a one-man crew) Here are some of the limitations that Robert Rodriguez had in making his first feature film; —One non-sync, film camera —One take of everything (because two takes would […]

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“If film died tomorrow I’d be sculpting, or painting, or something else that involved creativity. So really what I am is someone who lives a creative life. Not just in work, but when I’m not working…The creative process blows me away… And it applies to anything that you do. How you raise your children, how […]

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“I remember on From Dust to Dawn (1996) the special effects guys put too much fire in the explosion, and the actors came running out of of the building—and in the movie you see the building blow up at the end and the fireball just engulfed the whole set. And that was the first shot. […]

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“I say when you want to do anything you need to reduce you ‘I need list’ to very little. Because if you start going, ‘Well, I need first a crew. I need a budget. I need a set…’—the longer that list gets, the further away you’re going to accomplish that. So you need to shrink […]

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“I try not to think about theme until later. If I’m adapting a book I’ll extract a theme if I can from something that’s already written, but if I’m writing something I don’t say, ‘oh, here’s the theme.’ I feel like the movie feels – this word I keep using – it feels ‘built’ if you start with the theme ahead […]

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“The MDQ (Major Dramatic Question) is the linchpin of the dramatic narrative – the purpose for which the story is being told.” Christopher Lockhart “Hunger for the answer to the Major Dramatic Question grips the audience’s interest, holding it to the last act’s climax.” Robert McKee “At the center of every good movie there is […]

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