Screenwriting From Iowa

(I had hope to get the film I made last weekend uploaded today but had a little technical glitch so maybe I’ll get it up Monday.)
There are a lot of great quotes out there by writers who had nothing to do with screenwriting so I’ve decided to start a new section on quotes about writing [...]

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It’s not that Mamet isn’t concerned about social change it’s just as I quoted in yesterday’s post he doesn’t see that as the role of the artist. Dickens stands in the other corner. When Dickens’ father was sent to a debtors prison Dickens went to work in a factory — at age 12. He would [...]

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“It’s not the dramatist’s job to bring about social change. There are great men and great women who effect social change. They do so through costly demonstrations of personal courage—they risk getting their heads beat in during the march on Montgomery. Or chain themselves to a pillar. Or stand on the line, and that can [...]

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So last weekend for The 48 Hour Film Project/ Des Moines our team drew “Ghost Story” as the genre we had to make a short film.  We quickly started connecting the dots and Ghost was the first movie we tossed out as fitting the genre. That lead to jokes about getting pottery wheel. 
Other movies with [...]

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There’s nothing new about looking at the lasting impact of the Cinderella story. The basic theme resonates in so many stories it would take a lot to ignore the facts. Overlooked working girl ends up getting the prince. It strikes a cord. No one wants to be overlooked. We want our work to be recognized.
What [...]

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There are two performances by actors that stick in my mind as transcending acting. In both performances I had not see the actors before which helped bring a sense of heightened reality to the roles they played. And both come down to a single scene that burned into my memory. One was Denzel Washington and [...]

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Ernest Hemingway once said something to the effect that the secret of being a good writer was to have a miserable childhood. Frank McCourt would  qualify.
McCourt, who died last week, really should be the patron saint of something. Maybe the patron saint of writers who endure. If you’ve read his writings you know that he [...]

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A friend of mine from film school who has made over a dozen feature films says forget whether or not a film is any good or not, he’s just amazed that a film simply makes sense after you’ve finish editing it. Anyone who’s made even a short film knows there is a lot of truth [...]

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“(As a screenwriter) your goal should be to develop an educated gut, which is where the intellectual and emotional meet. When you have an ‘educated gut,’ it means that you receive visceral signals from your creative instincts, yet have enough command of craft to translate their message with with clarity and confidence.”
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This weekend I’m doing the 48 Hour Film Project (Des Moines) where who have to make a short film from beginning to end in 48 hours. It’s an exercise in embracing limitations. And when push comes to shove all filmmaking is embracing limitations because some where you have to draw the line on running time [...]

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