Screenwriting From Iowa

Yesterday I was in St. Petersburg, Florida and had lunch with a friend at The Moon Under Water which is a super restaurant with views of Tampa Bay. Before heading back to Orlando at night I had hamburger at El Cap also in St. Pete. They’ve been in business for 60+ years, but I was drawn […]

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“The scriptwriting field is unpredictable and potentially hazardous to your sanity, chockablock with all the paraphernalia of warfare–booby traps, blast craters, land mines, poison gas and agents. Your best hope of survival is to begin the journey with as much information as possible about the landscape and the strange people who live hereabouts. Because, while […]

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(This was originally posted on December 30, 2009 on my post titled Filmmaking Quote #7. Since then James Cameron’s movie Titanic no longer sits at the top of the box office—it’s been replaced by his movie Avatar.) “I rode a school bus for an hour each way… so I had two hours a day on […]

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If someone sees a story at a certain point in their lives, they can see this character (Bella), albeit a fictional character, has survived something, and not only survived it, but grown from it. That’s what all of the things in our lives, even the negative, painful experiences, they all I think provide an opportunity […]

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“I think that we make progress by telling our personal stories. The personal story can change the world.” Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black (Milk) (Note: This is s a reprint from a 2014 post but a nice follow-up to yesterday’s post.) What follows is the best example I’ve ever seen of using note cards to outline a […]

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I write each sequence on (three-by-five index) cards. One card for each sequence. I usually end up with twenty-eight, thirty sequences per hour of film. I put them on the floor so I can see them from up here. Probably because I was a film editor. I think it’s very good training for a screenwriter […]

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I never took a (screenwriting) course, what I did was read every screenplay I could get my hands on. And I tell people go find the crappy screenplays because they are abundant man. And that was what my inspiration was to a degree. So I wrote 12 screenplays before I gave one to anybody. Literally […]

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My biggest fear in my life would be to lose my family. So I’ve always been drawn to that theme. I mean, it’s odd. I never really talked or thought about it much, but if you look at the films I’ve done, particularly the films I’m really most happy with, and even the films that […]

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Today I’m going to the premiere of the doc This Cold Life at the Florida Film Festival. It will be anything but cold today in Maitland/Orlando, Florida as the mid-90 degree temps are some of the hottest in the United States. This cold life was shot in Longyeabyen, Norway, “the world’s northernmost town.” Darren Mann […]

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When I heard that Oscar-winning director Jonathan Demme died yesterday I thought of his films, but I also remember going to hear him speak at AFI’s Director on Directing series in the 80s. During his talk or interview he mentioned that he went to school at the University of Florida. I was around 24 years […]

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