Screenwriting From Iowa

“All my career–from television to today–I’ve always felt on the brink of getting something right. Anything. Thirty odd films later I look back and it’s all baby steps. One foot in front of the other. And all that’s kept me going is the feeling that as long as I was improving….” Mystery director Before I […]

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“I think that we make progress by telling our personal stories. Personal story can change the world.” Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black (Milk) What follows is the best example I’ve ever seen of using note cards to outline a screenplay. Related post: Screenwriting Via Index Cards Robert McKee vs. Richard Walter (Opposing views on ‘personal story.”) Scott […]

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“The thing to do is just keep writing. Show it to your girlfriend, boyfriend, or your wife, or whomever, and see if they like it. Then show it to your friends and see if they like it. You keep accumulating these little victories along the way. Pretty soon you’re showing it to an agent, and […]

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“Personal projects are a must for many reasons. Chiefly, they showcase your interests and give the client a better sense of your own personal interests. I am into relationship building with creatives, and understanding what drives and motivates them is important.  In a perfect scenario, I might see someone’s personal work that could tie in […]

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 “I knew I didn’t want to make it like a normal narrative film where it’s all about story.  I wanted it to be more like a meditation.” Pawel Pawlikowski Collier interview by Shelia Roberts “The real inspiration for how [Ida] looks was my impatience with cinema, where the vein of cinema is going. I wanted […]

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“I usually work on the script throughout the whole process—I re-wrote whole sections of Ida in prep, during rehearsals and even during the filming. It’s not like there’s a script and then I go and execute it. The script is always growing, evolving in my own peculiar method. It’s not like the usual film made in the […]

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Rebecca Lenkiewicz started out acting but in 2000 wrote a play that was performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company. In 2004 her play The Night Season was staged at the Royal National Theater and she was awarded the Critics’ Circle Theatre for the Most Promising Playwright.  For the past decade she’s written playscripts for BBC […]

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“I was originally a student of literature and philosophy in London. That’s where I started. I was also a keen photographer and I wrote stories. Poetry was what excited me most when I was in my late teens and early 20s. I loved going to films, but filmmaking didn’t seem like something I could do. The way […]

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If Ingmar Bergman and Horton Foote made a film together you’d go see it, right? (If you’re not familiar with either filmmaker just nod your head yes.) You wouldn’t be put off that it was a black and white film set in 1960s Poland—heck, you’d kinda expect that. Well, Bergman and Foote are both dead but […]

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“Any screenplay can be about any stakes. It can be tiny like trying to get a piece of gum off your shoe or saving the world–it’s irrelevant. The point is the stakes are important to the character and that you care as the audience about what the character cares about. I think of Swingers and [Jon […]

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