Screenwriting From Iowa

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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Here’s the first shot from the Good Morning America’s taping in Downtown Cedar Falls, Iowa.

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Sometimes I think about the only way
That I’ll ever see life beyond L.A. is dying
                                                  Ambrosia 
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“The antagonist must be as strong as the protagonist. The wills of conflicting personalities must clash.”
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“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing [...]

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 ”Time. We live by it, ladies and gentlemen, it doesn’t live by us.”
                                                                       Chuck Nolan (Tom Hanks)
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“The pivotal character knows what he wants…Without him the story flounders…in fact, there is no story.”
                                       Lajos Egri
One of the hang-ups that some people have with the classic writing book The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri is that its focus in on theater. And while some of the references are more well known [...]

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This week I called one of the most respected make-up artists in Iowa for an upcoming shoot and I found out she’s booked into August. Turns out she’s working in Des Moines on a feature with Forrest Whitaker (Oscar winner for The Last King of Scotland) and Adrian Brody (Oscar winner for The Pianist).
That’s some [...]

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