“We’re looking to create the future. We’re looking to change the world of education.” Lynda Weinman If you can’t talk politics on election day, when can you? Both President Obama and Mitt Romney (who I both photographed in the above pictures back in ’08) say that Iowa could hold the key to deciding the next president [...]
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Author Archive“I would never write about a character who is not at the end of his rope.” Stanley Elkin On Saturday I watched the movie Flight starring Denzel Washington and couldn’t help think about the last two posts I wrote quoting WME Story Editor Christopher Lockhart. Mainly because the Robert Zemeckis directed film from a script [...]
Nov
02
2012
 
Screenwriting Quote #172 (Christopher Lockhart)Posted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From Iowa“When you’ve read as many scripts as I’ve read—well over 30,000—it is very hard to throw something in front of me that makes me say, ‘Wow, I’ve never seen that before,’ and usually when I do it’s not because I’m thinking, ‘Wow, that’s an amazingly [original] concept,’ it’s because I’m thinking it’s the most ridiculously [...]
Nov
01
2012
Writing Actor Bait (Tip #64)Posted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From Iowa ”If you want to attach a star, then you really need to have a great protagonist. A protagonist who is really active, who is really initiating the action of the movie, who’s responsible for the forward momentum of the narrative. And perhaps there’s a transformational arc there, because that’s what actors want to play. They don’t [...] “Kindness is free.” Garry Marshall Garry Marshall survived bad health as a child. He survived long cold winters in Chicago as a college student. He survived a tour of duty in Korea as an Army soldier. He survived producing stressful TV shows. He survived bad investments that almost forced him into bankruptcy. He survived making [...] “If you pretend the characters can’t speak, and write a silent movie, you will be writing great drama.” David Mamet “Many Odd Couple fans have their favorite episodes, whether they be ‘The New Car,’ ‘Let’s Make a Deal,’ ‘That Is the Army, Mrs. Madison,’ ’Password,’ ‘The Ides of April,’ ‘It’s All Over Now,’ ‘Baby Bird,’ or ‘The [...]
Oct
29
2012
The “Stuckinna” Plot (Tip #63)Posted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From IowaOnly three more days left in my Month of Marhsall, where I’ve been finding bits of wisdom from writer/director Garry Marshall. Long before his success in films (Pretty Woman), or as the creator of TV shows (Happy Days, Mork & Mindy), he was a comedy writer for some of the biggest names in the 60s; [...]
Oct
26
2012
Wanted: Writers with No LivesPosted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From IowaYou can file this one under, “What they don’t teach in film school”: “Penny [Marshall] and Cindy [Williams] would plow through writers, leaving me constantly looking for replacements. Sometimes I would go over to Happy Days and entice a writer or two to come and take a spin on Laverne & Shirley. I pretended it [...] ”Happy Days was for me the quintessential television success story. I had followed my instincts, and they had turned out to be right.” Garry Marshall The early 70s were not happy days. A sweeping snapshot of the United States during that time might look like this; Viet Nam, Watergate, oil crisis, rising drug use, Taxi Driver. Gritty [...] You can’t base a month of posts on Hollywood legend Garry Marshall without touching on one of the most popular TV shows he created—Happy Days. Especially, when his book is called My Happy Days in Hollywood. The show was not only a hit for 11 seasons in its first run, but helped coined one of the [...] |
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