Screenwriting From Iowa

“For young black horror filmmakers, if you have a script, reach out and I’ll try to help it get made. Monkeypaw Productions is my production company and we’re really trying to promote untapped voices in genre… The reason we don’t see more films about the African American experience is because we haven’t nurtured black talent, […]

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“You will fail at some point in your life, accept it. You will lose, you will embarrass yourself, you will suck at something…And when you fall throughout life, remember this, fall forward.” Denzel Washington Full speech: Tagged: Denzel Washington

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I think the American psychologist Maslow said if your only tool is a hammer you view every problem as a nail. And I would flip that and say that the geniuses have very limited toolsets—they have a hammer. And their genius is in looking for nails. That’s their genius, right? They have a very limited […]

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One of the great joys of my decade living in Iowa was getting to know and work with artist Gary Kelley. Here he is explaining his football sized artwork at the Google data center in Council Bluffs, Iowa.   And these large murals are painted in other Google data centers (the cloud) around the world. P.S. […]

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“The 9000 series is the most reliable computer ever made. No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information. We are all, by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error.” Hal in 2001: A Space Odyssey Last week, before I could do a video interview at home I had […]

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“Your goals, your dreams are on the other side of the jungle. And there’s no straight line through the jungle….” Casey Neistat Tagged: Casey Neistat

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day. I took this photo earlier in the week at Raglan Road Irish Pub and Restaurant at Disney Springs. They’ve had a festival all week full of Celtic music and dancing. With bands playing inside and outside at Raglan Road it was one of the best Disney experiences I’ve ever had. Tagged: […]

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If you give an actor an honest role, they’ll want to play it. When I showed St. Vincent to Jack Nicholson, he said, ‘This is an actable piece.’ I spent time thinking, ‘What does that mean?’What an ‘actable piece,’ to me, ended up meaning is that it’s honest and pathos and everything you want. If you […]

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The first book I ever read in creative writing class was Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, and my favorite chapter from that is ‘Shitty First Drafts.’ So I have no problem writing a terrible first draft. I pretty much journal until I get to the point when I saw, Okay, now there needs to be […]

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“If I don’t do a [stand up comedy] set in two weeks, I feel it. I read an article a few years ago that said when you practice a sport a lot, you literally become a broadband: the nerve pathway in your brain contains a lot more information. As soon as you stop practicing, the […]

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