Screenwriting From Iowa

Budd Schulberg the Oscar winning writer of On the Waterfront died today. And it’s another reminder of what I call the mountain-top experience. For Schulberg On the Waterfront was his top of Everest script. Released in 1954 and starring Marlon Brando the film went on to win a total of eight Oscars and is considered [...]

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“A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.”  
                                                Richard Bach 


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So here’s our little 48 hour experimental film we produced a week ago for The 48 Hour Film Project (Des Moines). The genre we had to make a film in was “Ghost Story” and we had to include a character named Greg or Greta Calhoun, a can opener, and the line “I have three words [...]

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(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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