Screenwriting From Iowa

I’m in Chicago today for a video shoot and it’s always interesting to see what eclectic mix of movies are playing. Beyond the usual Hollywood fare, on this summer day in 2012, you could see everything from the 60th Anniversary event of Singin’ in the Rain, This Gun for Hire (1942) starring Alan Ladd & [...]

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“I always say [The Fastest Runner] is the most Indian movie ever made. It’s much more Indian than Smoke Signals.” Chris Eyre, director of Smoke Signals “We picked up a camera and started recording our own history. Stories that we used to hear when we were children. What we really belive and why we are [...]

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“In that one character [Billy Jack] you have embodied pretty much all of the 70s angst and anger that one could have in America. “ Jesse Wente Ojibway Film Critic [Chief Bromden] in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest started out as the sterotypical Indian and it rose to a level of humanity as the picture unfolds. [...]

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“My ancestors didn’t come over on the Mayflower, but they met the boat.” Will Rogers “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among those are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” 1776 USA Declaration of Independence [...]

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“The only place we see Indians riding horses and living in teepees and speaking Indian is in movies, and I thought: this is where the majority of people get their ideas about native people. So I thought, there’s an idea for a film.” Filmmaker Neil Diamond CBS News interview with Stephanie Skeneris Early this year [...]

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“It would seem that the respect for principle and the love of one’s neighbor have become dysfunctional in this country of ours…” Marlon Brando’s unfinished Oscar Speech in 1973 You may have heard of the Bechdel Test or Rule where you judge a movie by three criteria: 1. It has to have at least two [...]

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“A Hollywood producer interrogated me. ‘Are the film rights avalable?’ he asked. ‘Well, yeah,’ I said. ‘But you know it’s a book of poems?” Sherman Alexie On phone calls he got after great reviews of his first book The Business of Fancydancing “In the 60s…all the hippies were trying to be Indians.” Smoke Signals Sherman [...]

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On Saturday I went to the Meskwaki Settlement near Tama, Iowa to shoot video footage (and a few still photos) of my first pow wow. The footage will be part of the DVD features on an independent feature that will be shot in area later this month. In the past I’ve actually gone out of my [...]

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“I would say I’m the greatest.” Usain Bolt “This is very good for the country.” Portia Simpson—Miller Prime Minister of Jamaica Jamaica stunned the world yesterday. Taking home the gold, silver, and bronze in the men’s 200-metres finals at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. I haven’t written about this year’s Olympics, because I hadn’t [...]

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“I do, actually [see most movies follow a three-act paradigm]. I see setting up the conflicts, escalating the conflicts, and resolving them. But I also learned a long, long time ago about ‘plot need’: Will Dorothy get home? Will Bogart get Bergman? What is Rosebud? It is why you sit in your seat, and, for [...]

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