Author Archive
May
17
2011
 
Project Greenlight 2 (Part 1)Posted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From IowaMany years ago I was told I should watch Project Greenlight 2. I loved the first Project Greenlight where Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Chris Jones help Pete Jones write and direct his first feature film, Stolen Summer. So I finally picked up the DVD for Project Greenlight 2, The Battle of Shaker Heights on [...]
May
16
2011
Earl Newton & “Stranger Things”Posted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From Iowa“When Earl Newton was 10, he convinced his friends he was born on another planet.” The Destin Log “Long before Robert Rodriguez, (Russian filmmaker Seigei Eisnstein) was the original writer/director/editor. Here was a man, similar to myself, far from Hollywood, figuring out movies without a film school (in his case, none existed yet).” Earl Newton [...] Oscar-nominated screenwriter Arthur Laurents died earlier this month at the age of 93. While his Oscar nominations were both for the 1977 film The Turning Point, he’s better known for his screenplays Rope (1948) and The Way We Where. But perhaps he’s most well-known for writing the book of the musical West Side Story for [...]
May
14
2011
Filmmaking Quote #16 (David Mamet)Posted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From Iowa “My approach to directing is to figure out what the movie’s about, how each section contributes to that, figure out how each scene contributes to that section, and figure out how each beat contributes to that scene; and then get the movie shot by shot so that you’re telling the story the best way possible; [...] Austin-based food photographer Penny De Los Santos has traveled extensively throughout the United States and to more than 30 foreign countries shooting assignments for National Geographic, Martha Stewart Living, Saveur Magazine and others. Yet she has advice for those who think you must travel far away to find interesting stories: “There are great stories in [...]
May
13
2011
Writing Quote #24 (Elmore Leonard)Posted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From Iowa“I’ve always said: If it sounds like writing, revise it. After World War II, I found Hemingway. I loved his style, the white space on his pages, that you could tell a story with dialogue. Reading Hemingway inspired me to think about my own sound on the page. I would copy down a paragraph from [...]
May
11
2011
“It is a good time to be a filmmaker.”Posted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From IowaMonday was the single most viewed day in the three plus years of “Screenwriting from Iowa”—largely due to an influx to my post from last November The 10 Film Commandments of Edward Burns. Someone must be talking that post up. That was the post where I unpacked how Burns made Nice Guy Johnny in 2010 [...]
May
10
2011
Filmmaking Quote #15 (Edward Burns)Posted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From Iowa In light of Robert Benton’s quote about directing yesterday I found this quote as a nice bookend: “When I made my first film — I never made a film before — and I thought the role of the director was always to be directing the actors. And I also felt that what I wrote was [...]
May
09
2011
Filmmaking Quote #14 (Robert Benton)Posted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From Iowa“When I began directing I used to direct the actors. I’ve learned to try to get through doing as little directing as possible. Altman taught me to trust my actors. I do less takes because I think you’re going to get what you need in two or three or four takes. I think you destroy [...] A couple of years ago I wrote and directed a short film and cast Dom Wooten in the lead roll just because I wanted to showcase his talent and say some day that I worked with Dom. As a black 6’4″ college student from New Jersey you might think Dom is a basketball player walking [...] |
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