Screenwriting From Iowa

Can you have a day job (or a night job) and still find time to write? Yes. “I was a sound engineer. That was my day job when I started writing. I sort of did my day job every night. I would write from ten to six every day and at six, leave my apartment […]

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“When anyone challenges this story or thinks that I didn’t try to put the whole story out there, I’m like, ‘You know what? I bled for this thing,’” Jason Hall on a wrestling confrontation with a Navy SEAL while researching American Sniper Time magazine article by Eliana Dockterman Here’s a little background on screenwriter Jason Hall […]

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“I want my movies to be about regular people that are caught up in extraordinary moments in their lives, usually by their own doing. It’s not like a meteor movie where something’s coming from space that the people had nothing to do with. The characters have to either go right or left—there’s no option for […]

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‘Whiplash’ is astounding. Believe the hype. My heart was still pounding 10 minutes after the credits rolled.” Diablo Cody November 26, 2014 Tweet by @diablocody Damien Chazelle has a few things in common with Diabo Cody. Both are screenwriter/directors, both have cool names with the initials D.C., and both were 29-years-old when they received their first […]

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If you check out the Whiplash screenplay currently on the Sony Pictures website this is how screenwriter/director Damien Chazelle starts the opening scene, followed by a New York Times video of Chazelle explaining what he was after beginning the now Oscar-nominated Best Picture: BLACK… We hear a HIT. A drumstick against a drum head. Crisp, sharp. Then a second […]

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Screenwriter Damien Chazelle didn’t really write Whiplash straight out of Harvard University—he’d actually sold a few spec scripts after he graduated with a degree Visual & Environmental Sciences. He’d even had a couple of features produced from his scripts. But it wasn’t until after he tapped into his own experience as competitive jazz ensemble drummer in high school […]

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Screenwriter Damien Chazelle didn’t really write Whiplash straight out of Harvard University—he’d actually sold a few spec scripts after he graduated with a degree Visual & Environmental Sciences. He’d even had a couple of features produced from his scripts. But it wasn’t until after he tapped into his own experience as competitive jazz ensemble drummer in high school […]

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“I grew up in the Compton/Lynwood area of Los Angeles. My family has no connection with the entertainment industry at all except that I had a very beloved aunt named Denise who was a lover of the arts, of film and music and theater and literature. She gifted me with an appreciation for it all. […]

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“To tell you the truth, I try not to get analytical in the writing process. I really try not to do that. I try to just kind of keep the flow from my brain to my hand as far as the pen is concerned and, as I’ve said, go with the moment and go with […]

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“Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue.” Playwright Eugene O’Neill From his play The Great God Brown “I broke my hand, my shoulder, my elbow and my face but the real injury this year was to my Irish pride as it was discovered that under my tracksuit I […]

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