Author Archive
Sep
02
2015
 
Nothing Ever Goes as PlannedPosted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From Iowa“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. […] “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 […] “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 […]
Aug
28
2015
The Major or Central Dramatic Question (Tip #101)Posted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From Iowa“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 […] “Read poetry every day of your life. Poetry is good because it flexes muscles you don’t use often enough. Poetry expands the senses and keeps them in prime condition…Poetry is compacted metaphor or simile…Ideas lie everywhere through the poetry books…From Byron’s, And the Moon Be Still as Bright, came a chapter for my novel The […]
Aug
26
2015
Writing Quote #53 (Ray Bradbury)Posted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From IowaRay Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451) is yet another writer who had that Midwest/Hollywood thing going on. Born in Waukegan, Illinois, and raised on comic books, carnivals, and Edgar Allen Poe, he graduated from Los Angeles High School in 1938. (And of what it’s worth, he did not attend college.) When he died in 2012 at the […]
Aug
25
2015
Is TV the Best Place to Tell Your Story?Posted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From Iowa“Public Morals is proof that even in this time of television’s Great Overcrowding, one should never judge a show by its genre… Public Morals is a picaresque, briskly written and quickly captivating series that is neither afraid nor ashamed of entertaining its audience.” Mary McNamara Los Angeles Times review Public Morals, created by Edward Burns, premieres tonight on […]
Aug
24
2015
‘Straight Outta Compton’ (Wearing Silver & Black)Posted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From Iowa“My first impression of the Raiders was that they were violent, and they were a little rough around the edges. And I think that’s what I liked about them.” Ice Cube, rapper (N.W.A.) and producer (Straight Outta Compton) “When you got to N.W.A. you had this merger of sort of a gangster football team and […] Related Posts: The Juno-Iowa Connection Screenwriting Quote #1 (Diablo Cody) ‘Ricki and the Flash’—Meryl and the Screenwriter Screenwriting’s Biggest Flirt Juno Has Another Baby (Emmy) Scott W. Smith “Of the scores of screenwriters who might have authored the story of gangsta rap on the big screen, Jonathan Herman is not the most intuitive candidate.” Steven Zeitchik LA Times After Alan Wenkus and S. Leigh Savidge sold their screenplay Straight Outta Compton in 2008, and after screenwriter Andrea Berloff spent three and a half […] |
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