Screenwriting From Iowa

“Inspiration is hard work.”
                                           W.P. Kinsella  
 
Today marks the 20th anniversary of the Field of Dreams release. Since I’ve mentioned the movie and the screenwriter/director Phil Alden Robinson a time or two before I thought [...]

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Yesterday I was reading David Bordwell’s book The Way Hollywood Tells It which as the subtitle says is a look at Story and Style in Modern Movies. Bordwell taught film studies for several decades at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. (I think he recently retired.) Robert Ebert has said, “David Bordwell is our best writer on [...]

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Since I mentioned both director John Boorman and Liberal Arts in the last few days that lead me to the writer of Deliverance, James Dickey. It took Dickey ten years to write the novel and he also wrote the screenplay for the 1972 movie that would be his only feature film release. (Though he did [...]

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I took the above photo at Calvin College after my screenwriting talks this week. It’s part of Calvin’s Crossing, a pedestrian bridge designed by architect Frank Gorman that spans a little over a football field in length connecting one the main parts of campus with the DeVos Communications Center over one of the busiest roads [...]

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The great think about traveling is it allows you to toss things into your creative blender, to learn things, and to see new things. For instance, though I have traveled to all 50 states here in the US I did something yesterday that was a nice surprise. In flying from Grand Rapids, Michigan to Minneapolis, [...]

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“You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me?”
                                         Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro)
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When Ed Burns came on the scene in 1995 with his film The Brothers McMullen he was the independent hero of the year. That film was made in the $25,000. range with a loan from his father who was tired of hearing Burns complain about his screenplays not getting made. The Brothers McMullen went on to make [...]

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“Cast Away is designed to be entertainment, but one that is making a sincere attempt to get to something deeper.”
                                          Bill Broyals
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“Movie storytelling is about redemption–the recovery of something lost or the attainment of something needed.”
                                                               Brian Godowa
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The movie The Greatest Story Every Told is not considered a great movie. Nor is it the greatest movie made on the life of Christ. Nor is it the biggest box office maker on the life of Christ. Nor is it the most viewed film on the life of Christ. But you have to agree [...]

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