Author Archive
Nov
12
2012
 
The Sounds of Portland (Room 529)Posted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From IowaIn light of the Friday post on Portland filmmaker Edd Blott, and the University of Oregon football team stepping up to #1 ranking in the AP poll over the weekend (how can you not pull for a team whose mascot is a duck?), I’m feeling in a very Oregon state of mind. So I went over to [...]
Nov
09
2012
Congrats Edd Blott on Best Director AwardPosted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From IowaCongrats to Portland filmmaker Edd Blott (and long time reader of this blog) for winning Best Director of the 2012 Oregon Film Awards for his feature A Tale of Delight. The film—which Edd also wrote— will have its world premiere at The Academy Theater in Portland on Dec. 6, 2012. Check out the interviews I [...]
Nov
08
2012
Paying for Transformation (Tip #65)Posted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From Iowa“Not all film heroes change: James Bond, Ace Ventura, Batman and other action figures are too busy effecting change, by saving the world or making us laugh, to undergo personal transformation. However, in the film stories we turn to time and time again, be it Casablanca, Witness, Moonstruck, Chinatown or In the Line of Fire, [...] Tagged: Lincoln “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 [...] “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 [...] |
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