Screenwriting From Iowa

“One of the questions you get asked when you’re a professional filmmaker is, ‘I want to be a director how do I do it?’ And the only real answer to that question is ‘make a film.’ Twenty years ago, even ten years ago it was harder to do that. But with the advancement of digital […]

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Last year Oberlin was voted the “Best Hometown” in northeast Ohio by Ohio Magazine.  The city of just under 10,000 people was founded in 1833 by two Presbyterian ministers, and just happens to also be the place that helped develop two top Hollywood screenwriters. And while the city sits between Cleveland and Toledo you have to […]

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“I started out in newspapers, went on to narrative nonfiction magazine articles in the late 90′s, and then began trying my hand at screenwriting…In 2002, Kathryn Bigelow optioned a piece I did called ‘Jailbait.’ It became a short-lived TV show on Fox that she directed. That was really my introduction to television and film. The […]

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At the beginning of 2012 I decided for various reasons that after blogging everyday for three years that I would take the weekends off from blogging. But that all changes today, in that I will use Saturday’s to do a repost of pervious posts. The idea came to me Thursday after I had a meeting […]

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“I don’t want to bring this to a conclusion on a down note. A few years back, I got a call from an agent, he said look ‘Will you come see this film? It’s a small, independent film a client made. It’s been making the festival circuit and it’s getting a really good response, but […]

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“A few months ago I was on this Jet Blue flight going from New York to Burbank…I’m getting comfortable in my seat—You know, I spent the 60 bucks to get the extra the legroom— so I’m starting to get a little comfortable and we make altitude. And there’s a guy who is in the other side […]

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“Most of the stuff that I’m looking forward to seeing is on TV now. Almost exclusively due to The Sopranos, there’s been a resurgence in long-form television. That’s great for someone like me, the ability to play out a narrative with a very long arc and explore complicated characters and have the audience be happy about […]

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Following the recent Morgan Spurlock post about Being Platformagnostic, this weekend I came across this Q&A with filmmaker Kevin Smith: Q: When you’ve said in the past that you will retire after Clerks 3 what did you exactly mean? Kevin Smith: It’s not just me walking away. It’s just not me doing movies for movie theaters […]

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“You need to be very ‘platformagostic.’ You want to find an audience wherever that audience is. So think about the web, TV, and theaters. Open yourself to as many possibilities as you can imagine. Today you cannot be just a filmmaker; you have to be a marketer, accountant, publicist, writer, and businessman. You have to […]

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“You want to find an audience wherever that audience is. So think about the web, TV, and theaters. Open yourself to as many possibilities as you can imagine. Today you cannot be just a filmmaker; you have to be a marketer, accountant, publicist, writer, and businessman. You have to understand the economics of making a […]

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