Posted in Screenwriting Road Trips, screenwriting, tagged 80th Academy Awards, Best Adapted Screenplay, best screenplay, Bob Dylan, Coen brothers, Diablo Cody, entertainment, Frank Baum, Garrison Keillor, Hollywood, IFP, Iowa, Jessica Lange, Joel & Ethan Coen, Juno, Mary Tyler Moore, Midwest writers, Minneaplois Minnesota, Minneapolis Star Tribune, movies, No Country for Old Men, Oscars, Paisley Park, Praire Home Companion, Prince, Scott W. Smith, screenwriting, screenwriting from minnesota, Spam, Spam Museum, St. Paul, Starbucks, Steven Spielberg, Terry Gillam, The Guerilla Film Makers Handbook, University of Iowa, Wizard of Oz on February 27, 2008 | No Comments »
And the winner is… Minnesota.
If someone wanted to make a point about talent coming from outside Hollywood the 80th Academy Awards would be a great place to start. (The above photo is not from the Oscars but gave me an excuse to highlight the Minneapolis Convention Center from a production I worked on a couple [...]
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Posted in Screenwriting Road Trips, screenwriting, tagged Britney Spears, David Nutter, entertainment, filmmaking, Francis Ford Coppola, Frank Darabont, George Clooney, Iowa, John Sayles, Katire Couric, Matchbox Twenty, NBC Today, Orlando films, Quinton Tarantino, Ralph Clemente, Rod Serling, Ron Howard, screenwriting, Screenwriting Ohio, Shaq, Spike Lee, Steven Soderbergh, Steven Spielberg, Sylvester Stallone, The Blair Witch Project, The Twlight Zone, Tom Cruise, Valencia Community College, Wesley Snipes, Willie Nelson, Yellow Springs on February 23, 2008 | 4 Comments »
”One day some little fat girl in Ohio is going to be the new Mozart.” [...]
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Posted in Most Viewed Posts, screenwriting, tagged A Raisin in the Sun, Bernard Malamud, Daddy Day Care, entertainment, film, Geoff Rodkey, Goethe, Iowa Writers' Workshop, John Steinbeck, Lake Howell High School, Lew Hunter, Lorraine Hansberry, Natalie Goldberg, Neil Simon, Quentin Tarantino, Scott Smith, screenwriting, Screenwriting Iowa, Sean Combs, Sidney Poitier, teaching, The Natural, UCLA, University of Wisconsin-Madison on February 20, 2008 | 5 Comments »
There is an age old question; Can writing be taught?
Don’t be silly, of course it can.
When it comes to most things in life we expect that we must be taught how to do them properly. We are taught how to ride a bike, swim, our A-B-C’s, to a drive a car, how to be a [...]
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Posted in Most Viewed Posts, screenwriting, tagged Beatles, Big Fish, Casablanca, Chinatown, Chuck Norris, David Lynch, entertainment, Fairfield Iowa, filmmaking, George Lucus, ILM, Infomercials, Iowa Writers' Workshop, John August, Koyaanisqatsi, Maharishi, movies, Robert McKee, San Francisco, Scott W. Smith, screenwriting, screenwriting gurus, Seth Godin, The Matrix, The Straight Story, Tom Peters, USC, writing, Yoda on February 18, 2008 | 2 Comments »
“So many gurus and so few good writers. Where are all these lessons going?”
[...]
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Posted in screenwriting, screenwriting tips, tagged Akiva Goldsman, art, artists, Barnes & Noble, Cedar Falls, Creativity, Diablo Cody, Frank Darabont, Gary Kelley, Iowa, It's a wonderful life, Jimmy Buffett, Joe Eszterhas, John Grisham, Juno, Martin Scorsese, Milton Glaser, movies, screenwriters back-to-work, Steve Martin, Tarantino, Thomas Moore, UCLA, University of Iowa, Waterloo-Ceder Falls Symphony, We support signs, William Goldman, Writer's Strike, writer's strike over, writing on February 12, 2008 | 2 Comments »
The Writers Guild of America strike has finally ended and now the “We Support” signs can come down and go on ebay. But I do have a couple questions. Who is the “we” in the above photo? And why does Gary Kelley have it on his door at work? Kelley is not a screenwriter though he [...]
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Posted in screenwriting, screenwriting tips, tagged AFI, Alfred Uhry, Conflict, CS Lewis, Deana Carter, Driving Miss Daisy, Edward Albee, Film School, Flannery O'Connor, Georgia, Jaws, Jimmy Buffett, Lew Hunter, Martin Luther King, Mike Tyson, movies, Orson Welles, Richard Walter, Rocky, Sam Shepard on February 8, 2008 | No Comments »
Here’s everything I learned in film school (and in screenwriting workshops and books)…boiled down to one word. But before I get to that one word let me say that I went to film school so long ago that Orson Welles was in my class. Okay, not that long ago, but back when films schools only [...]
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Posted in screenwriting, tagged 1972 Miami Dolphins, Bill Belichick, Blake Snyder, David Tyree, Eli Manning, Florida, Iowa, Kawika Mitchell, Lake Howell High School, New York Giants, NFL, Paul Warfield, Plaxico Burress, Remember the Titans, screenwriting, sports cliches, sports movies, Super Bowl, The Final Season, The Shawshank Redemtion, Tom Brady, Wes Welker, Winter Park on February 4, 2008 | No Comments »
If yesterday’s Super Bowl football game were a movie, the critics would have walked out because of all the sports clichés. An underdog team that started the season with two losses goes up against the undefeated powerhouse team in the championship game and in the last minute scores the winning touchdown. They become the first [...]
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