Author Archive
Jul
29
2017
 
Sequence Writing via The Script LabPosted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From IowaAs a follow-up to yesterday’s post Sequence Writing (Tip #105) I found these videos produced by The Script Lab which you may find useful in exploring the sequence method of writing further: Scott W. Smith
Jul
29
2017
Spaceships. For Earth. In Iowa.Posted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From IowaWay back when I started this blog in 2008 I did so while living in Cedar Falls, Iowa. A town of 35,000 and if known by anyone outside of Iowa it’s probably because it’s home to the University of Northern Iowa (UNI). Sports fans may know of UNI because it’s where Pro Football Hall-of-Fame QB […] “The sequence method doesn’t just make a screenplay better; it also makes it easier to write. Sequencing helps clarify character motivation and drive, and illuminate which scenes are dramatically necessary and which are irrelevant.” Screenwriter Andrew W. Marlow (Air Force One, Castle) “A typical two-hour film is composed of sequences—eight-to fifteen-minute segments that have their […] “I’m more of the sort of Lars von Trier Breaking the Waves school. The movie [Lion] is primarily an emotional journey, and the movies that matter to me, you experience them here, in the heart and the gut. They’re not such intellectual exercises as visceral and emotional experiences.” Screenwriter Luke Davies (Lion) “I made mistakes […] There is a lot of luck to [breaking in], but I also do have to say I wrote a lot. By that time I sold [the screenplay] August Rush I had written 11 feature films—maybe 12. I think you know my philosophy, it’s not write about what you know—it’s write about what you know hurts. […]
Jul
24
2017
Love and Torture in ScreenwritingPosted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From IowaYou’ve got to have a story and characters the audience will love. [Oscar-winning screenwriter] Callie Khori invited me to speak to the screenwriter’s guild and she said ‘you make a movie by making the audience love the characters and then you torture them.” Dr. Art DeVany (Former UCLA economics professor who created mathematical and statistical models to […] I did a binge watch of The People v. O.J. Simpson over the weekend and finished all ten episodes in three days. It was a remarkably well crafted production of a sad chapter in recent American history. It captivated the country in a pre-internet saturated world, and in terms of celebrity, money, power, injustice, domestic viloence, sexism and […]
Jul
22
2017
Six Months to the Finish LinePosted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From Iowa When I started this blog I didn’t have any long terms plans. I certainly didn’t think that 9 1/2 years later I’d still be writing blog posts. I mentioned in January my plans to end this blog on the 10th anniversary of this blog which is six months from today. That’s still my […] “The most important thing is the story. We need to be telling a better story.” Attorney Johnny Cochran (Courtney B. Vance) in The People v. O.J. Simpson This morning I woke up at 4:30 AM unintentionally and did what any other sane person would do—I watched the first episode of The People v. OJ Simpson: American […]
Jul
20
2017
Making Important Connections in Your ScreenplayPosted by: screenwritingfromiowa in Screenwriting From IowaThere is often strong connection between the inciting incident, the characterization of the protagonist, and the objective (and even the obstacles and the climax). The respective protagonists of Ikiru, Haut les caeur! and Breaking Bad have the same inciting incidents: they learn they have cancer. But because they don’t have the same characterization, that inciting […] |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
