Writing “The Odd Couple”

“It’s universality is obvious. Who among us, sometime in his life, hasn’t shared living quarters with another human being?…The play represented everyone in the world, including, I imagine, astronauts in space for weeks at a time.” Neil Simon on his play/screenplay The Odd Couple While my post on Scent of a Woman showed a movie [...]

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Writing “Scent of a Woman”

“(Scent of a Woman) is my favorite only because I feel like I matured and the movie reflects that.” Screenwriter Bo Goldman Before Bo Goldman won an Academy Award as a screenwriter he had to experience his own personal life of ups and downs. His father owned a chain of department stores which afforded Goldman [...]

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Writing “Rebel Without a Cause”

Screenwriter Stewart Stern has popped up on this blog before because he was educated at the University of Iowa and he wrote the screenplay for Rebel Without a Cause. Yesterday, I discovered an interview with him, Stewart Stern; Out of the Soul, Interview by Margy Rochin, which is part of the UC Press E-Books Collection online. Anytime [...]

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St. Louis Walk of Fame

“It is self-evident that St. Louis affected me more deeply than any other environment has ever done. I feel that there is something in having passed one’s childhood beside the big river, which is incommunicable to those people who have not. I consider myself fortunate to have been born here, rather than in Boston, or New [...]

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Off Screen Quote #18 (Scott Joplin)

A popular quote attributed to composer & musican Scott Joplin is, “When I’m dead twenty-five years, people are going to begin to recognize me.” And here we are almost 100 years after his death still talking about “The King of Ragtime” and playing his music. I thought of Joplin yesterday when I drove by the [...]

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Making a Name for Yourself 101

“Let it roll off the tongue: Ali Farokhmanesh. Get used to it: Fuh-ROAK-muh-NESH.” Brett McMurphy NCAA Fanhouse “When you’re a small program like this, you want to get your name out there.” Ali Farokhmanesh The name Ali Farokhmanesh is not a common name in Iowa. Probably not common in entire the United States. But it is [...]

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DAVID MAMET’S BOLD MEMO (?)

“IF YOU PRETEND THE CHARACTERS CANT SPEAK, AND WRITE A SILENT MOVIE, YOU WILL BE WRITING GREAT DRAMA.” David Mamet (?) My friend Carolynn sent me an email yesterday in regard to an alleged David Mamet memo. I had not see it before, but whether he wrote the memo or not, I think it is going down as instant legendary [...]

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The Secret Hollywood Handshake

Recently I came across a post called Selling Screenplays From Outside L.A.? by Hal Croasmun where at an event he says he asked the question, “Is it possible to create a screenwriting career from outside L.A.?” to 16 L.A. producers and two agents.  Croasmun writes; Up until recently, the typical answer to the “selling from [...]

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Screenwriter/Director Richard Brooks

“I write in toilets, on planes, when I’m walking, when I stop the car. I make notes. If I am working at a studio, I work at the studio in the morning, then come home. I am really writing two days instead of one. After the studio, I have my second day [at home]. I write [...]

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Meet Your First Audience (Tip #36)

Last week I was asked this question: “I’m trying to write more with ‘looks,’ more action, and less dialogue. I find very little advice for how to write these looks into the narrative without ‘directing’ the scene. Also, screenwriting books frequently state that narrative sections rarely get read by readers early in the process. That [...]

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