Screenwriting From Iowa

I’m going to be flying by memory today, but feel confident I have my facts straight. There’s a scene in Pretty Woman where Julie Roberts and Richard Gere are having a conversation in their hotel room one morning. On one of the director’s commentaries Garry Marshall says that scene was edited down from either a [...]

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It’s mash-up Monday here at Screenwriting from Iowa…and Other Unlikely Places. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but the past four weeks have been the highest weeks of views I’ve ever had on this blog. And most of the posts in the past four weeks have been insights from producer/writer/director Garry Marshall. So I’ll continue that trend [...]

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“Film directors should jump at any chance to direct a play because it can improve their relationship with actors. What’s wonderful about theater is that you get to move the actors around and stage scenes. You don’t have to worry about things like flattering closeups or intricate lighting. Theater features an actor from the top [...]

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“For the sake of the story, you never want to mislead the audience, unless it’s intentional, a method Jackie Gleason used to call the Wild Turkey theory. If a guy walks into a bar and says, ‘I’d like a scotch and water, please,’ that’s a straight line and if you follow it with a joke [...]

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“The original writer [of The Flamingo Kid] Neal Marshall, no relationship to me, had written a solid script based on his youth spent in the Catskills. Neal and I rewrote the script with notes from the producers, then the screenwriter Bo Goldman took a pass at a rewrite but would not ask for screenwriting credit [...]

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Yesterday I did a shoot in downtown Chicago and thought I’d take brief detour from giving some of Garry Marshall’s directing tips and talk about his own detour to Chicago on his journey from the Bronx to Hollywood. “Academically, Northwestern opened many new doors for me. It was the first place I learned that words mattered and [...]

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“My first movie for Garry [Marshall] was Garry’s first movie. It didn’t take me long to realize that he’s a master of comedy and a natural mentor to budding talent. I’ve watched him time and time again inspire young people who showed an aptitude and zeal for the work, whether it was writing, acting, or [...]

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The directing tips today culled from Garry Marshall’s book Wake Me When It’s Funny have to do with working with studios and crew members: “One of the best characteristics a director can have is the ability to compromise wisely. If you don’t want to compromise you can go off and make your own movie, but [...]

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The spike in views keep coming so I’m going to stay on this Garry Marshall gravy train a little while longer. The funny thing about Marshall’s book Wake Me When It’s Funny is it’s not really that funny of a book. I don’t mean that in a bad way. It has its humorous moments, but [...]

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“The truth is that there are a few stars who are just one taco short of a combo platter. The director’s job is to deal with it all.” Garry Marshall “On the first day of a shoot, I always let my lead actors know that they’re the only ones on the set who are allowed [...]

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