John, Paul, George and ?

“There is no way I’d be doing what I do now if it wasn’t for The Beatles. I was watching the Ed Sullivan show and I saw them. Those skinny little boys, kind of androgynous, with long hair like girls. It blew me away that these four boys in the middle of nowhere could make that music.”
Gene Simmons of KISS
Gene Simmons Talks Liverpool, The Beatles 

Just after 3AM this morning I arrived back home in Florida after a road trip that lasted 22 days and covered 4099 miles. I worked on a variety of projects performing a variety of roles (producing, directing, shooting–stills and video–and editing).

Worked on everything from a long form multimedia symphony project that was performed live, to a one minute corporate web video. In fact as my trip came to a close I thought of the eclectic week I had just this week. Over the weekend I shot a reality auction TV show that I will also be editing. On Sunday, while at the Downtown Des Moines Marriott I saw a travel infomercial I shot and edited in Central Florida last month airing on TV.

On Monday a short film I was DP on years ago had a screening in Decorah, Iowa. On Monday a four camera production I produced, shot, and edited in Orlando launched online Monday. A commercial I edited Monday will air regionally in the Midwest next week. Another video I shot and edited (partly in a Starbucks in Atlanta yesterday) will be apart of an award show at the end of the month. And a feature film shot in Iowa last year will its a debut tonight. I shot some footage for extras part of the DVD that I’m told they are selling tonight at the screening. And I supplied some rental production equipment to a documentary that will be shown in Algeria.

All that to say, if your desire is to work in feature films or TV and you’re not doing so there are 1,000s of other opportunities out there for you to gain valuable production experience—and to make money to pay your bills. And you get the bonus to meet and work with plenty of production people who have like-minded goals that you do. (Go back and read the ’09 post Beatles, Cody, King and 10,000 Hours.)

And if you’re a writer you also get tons of material to file away in your idea bank. Here’s one example I picked up over the weekend. At the auction in Des Moines was a 11 or 12-year-old boy who had traveled from California with his father to bid on some antique billiard racks. (They won the main rack they wanted with a bid of more than $10,000.) Bu the auction also had some rock-n-roll memoriblia—including a KISS Pinball machine, a Bo Diddley outfit, and the Beatles Butcher album–so when I interviewed the 11/12-year-old I asked him if he knew who the Beatles were and he said he did.

Then I asked him if he could name them. He jumped right in with “John, Paul, George and…” then there was a paused, he thought for a few seconds and said, “Rambo.”  I bet even Ringo Starr would laugh at being excluded from the fab four. It was a fresh line and I’m not sure I’ll never think of the Beatles again without thinking of John, Paul, George and Rambo. (Perhaps I can start a rumor that Rambo was the sixth Beatle. Pete Best, of course, being the fifth Beatle.)

Speaking of the Beatles I did miss an opportunity to hear Paul McCarney’s son James McCartney and his band who were playing in Des Moines at Vaudeville Mews last Saturday night just a few blocks from my hotel. And speaking of KISS that Pinball machine I pictured with above went for $2,300. Made me think of their song Beth which was a favorite of mine back in the day. Looked it up on You Tube and found this unusual version performed with a small symphony in Melbourne, Austraila—with orchestra members wearing KISS painted faces. (Like that Rambo line, I’m not making this stuff up.)

From Pat Conroy to KISS is one day—that’s how we roll here at Screenwriting from Iowa…and Other Unlikely Places.

Scott W. Smith

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Writing Quote #39 (Writing in Paris)

This morning I was in Atlanta, Georgia and writer Pat Conroy was on my mind. On this road trip I’ve been listening to Conroy’s book on CD My Reading Life.  While he’s usually associated with South Carolina’s Lowcounty because many of his books (The Water is Wide, The Great Santini, South of Broad) are set in that region. And I believe he currently lives on Fripp Island near Beaufort, South Carolina, but Conroy was actually born in Atlanta and has spent much of his life living there.

But it was neither Atlanta or South Carolina, but Paris where Conroy wrote one of his most successful books, The Lords of Discipline.

“I would work on the novel during the day, beginning at nine in the morning. I would break for lunch, walk down to the market street on the rue de Seine, buy food at the charcuterie, stop for a baguette, and bring the food back to my room. After lunch I would nap for an hour, rise, wash my face with cold water, then resume writing until five o’clock. There was an exceptional sameness to these days, a habitualness that pleased me immensely. I tried to fill up five legal pages a day, a quota that translated directly into seven typewritten, double pages. At the end of the first week I had twenty-eight pages. I worked seven days a week during that four month period I lived in Paris, and before I left Grand Hotel des Balcons I would produce six hundred written pages. It would be the most productive time of my life.”
Pat Conroy on writing The Lords of Discipline
My Reading Life, page 210

The book was published in 1980 and the movie version written by Thomas Pope and Loyd Fonvielle was released in 1983.

Related Posts:

Writing Quote #32 (Waiting for Tortoises)
Writing Quote #20 (Pat Conroy)

Scott W. Smith

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Filmmaker Les Blank (1935-2013)

“I think he’s a national treasure.”
Director Taylor Hackford on Les Blank 

“As his work testifies, [Les]Blank has made a fine art out of making a personal connection with diverse people. He works through the lens, behind the camera, never drawing attention to himself. He makes friends with his subjects, spends weeks with them and acknowledges their dignity.”
A Well-Spent Life
DGA Quarterly/Spring 2013 Betsy Mclane

When Les Blank died last month he left behind a 50-year library of documentary films. Many of which gave an unusual glimpse into life in the United States. Roger Ebert called him, “A brilliant filmmaker,” he received  a Special Jury Award at Sundance one year, and received  a lifetime achievement award from AFI.

In the post Les Blank’s start, I found a quote where he said in an interview, “When I got out of film school, I had a hard time getting into the show business end of the media in Hollywood. I wasn’t a very good fit.” I’m not sure how many of his classmates went on to have a career in Hollywood, but I imagine Blank is the only one who had a filmmaking career than spanned five decades.

Scott W. Smith

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“The Planets: Re-Imagined”—The Concert

A few mountaintop experiences in my life include seeing one full solar eclipse in Salzburg, winning two Regional Emmy’s in Minneapolis, and scoring three touchdowns in a high school football game in Florida. That’s an eclectic mix, and there have been others of course, but those came to my mind Saturday night as I was brought up on stage after the debut of The Planets: Re-Imagined featuring the artwork of Gary Kelley, the music of Holst performed by the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony and a choral group from the University of Northern Iowa. All brought together under the direction of conductor Jason Weinberger.

My role was to create the video along with Kelley which was projected in high-definition on the 30 foot wide-screen just above the orchestra at the Gallagher Bluedorn Performing Arts Center in Cedar Falls, Iowa. Standing on stage and looking up at more than 1,200 people applauding something you worked on is an amazing experience by itself.

The concert was a great experience and I hope in the coming years The Planets: Re-Imagined finds its way into concert halls throughout the United States and even around the world. Jason Weinberger is not only the conductor of the WCFSO but the its artistic director and CEO as well. Raised in Santa Monica and educated at Yale and Peabody, Weinberger has quite a vision and hope for the future of symphony music and education.

It was a special night and I was thrilled to be connected with so many talented people.

Below are some photos of the concert (and a rehearsal and pre-concert talk) taken by Noah Henscheid a photographer from St. Paul, Minnesota.

P.S. If you’re unfamiliar with Gary Kelley’s work, there’s a good chance you’ve  at least seen his art—if you’ve ever been to a Barnes & Noble book store.  Since there’s about to be a revival of author F. Scott Fitzgerald due to the release of the movie The Great Gatsby next month, here’s a photo I took at a Barnes & Noble/Starbucks of Fitzgerald that is part of the mural of writers that Kelley painted. (Actually taken in the Twin Cities not far from where Fitzgerald was born and raised.) Kelley is repped by Richard Solomon in NYC.

Scott W. Smith

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“The Planets—Reimagined”

Here’s a promotional video for a project I finished editing this week with artist Gary Kelley called The Planets—Reimagined.  The video I worked on will be part the  multi-media concert featuring the music of  Gustav Holst performed by the  Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony led by conductor Jason Weinberger. The debut is tomorrow night (April 27, 2013) and the hope is that the project will be licensed by other symphonies around the county.

It’s been a privilege to be connected with so many talented people.

Scott W. Smith

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The Use of Time

 ”That thing that can write great symphonies, that can write great tragedies is this use of time.”
Branch Rickey
1956 speech in Atlanta

One of the things I learned in the movie 42 was how deliberate Branch Rickey was in integrating professional baseball when he signed Jackie Robinson to a contract—and how much time it took to pull off his “experiment” of ending segregation in baseball.

It made me wonder where Branch Rickey came from and the answer turns out to be a small town in Ohio.

Rickey was born in Stockdale, Ohio and raised on a farm and educated in a one room school house.  He was a devout Christian in the Methodist tradition with a sense of a calling. In a sermon once said that the Lord’s work called for him to bring the first black ballplayer into major league baseball.

Writer Jimmy Breslin, in his book Branch Rickey, gives this glimpse into the intellect of Rickey; ”He never went to high school, but his first job was as a schoolteacher. Later he taught college freshman English, Latin, Shakespeare, and Greek drama, and read for the law in his free time.”

Rickey graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University and law school at the University of Michigan. He was an officer in the Army during World War 1.

He was also a good enough baseball player himself to briefly play major league baseball (and he was also paid to play football in Ohio), but it was his role on the management side in baseball where he would make his mark. He became president of the St. Louis Cardinals when he was 36-years old and joined the Brooklyn Dodgers as president and general manager when he was 62-years-old.

When in 1945 he broke the race barrier by signing Jackie Robinson as the first black professional baseball player in the modern era Rickey was 64-years old. And according to various reports it was on his mind since seeing a racial injustice happen when he was in college. Call it the 40 year plan.

“We tend to overestimate what we can do in one year, and underestimate what we can do in ten.”
Richard Foster

The take away is you can be raised on a farm in a small town in Ohio and with a little faith, education and  persistence–and forty years of patience—you can change the world.

Related posts:

Screenwriting & the Little Fat Girl from Ohio
The Lucky Slob from Ohio
Rod Serling’s Ohio Epiphany
Great Screenplay=10 Man Years
Shoot for the Moon
Toy Story 3′s Ohio Connection
Starting Small

Scott W. Smith  

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“A Little Good Good New Today”

In light of current events, I thought about the song A Little Good News Today. That song was released by Anne Murray 30-years ago, but the lyrics written by Tommy Rocco, Charlie Black, and Rory Michael Bourke hold up pretty well. 

A Little Good News Today

I rolled out this morning
Kids had the mornin’ news show on
Bryant Gumbel was talkin’ ’bout the fighting in Lebanon
Some senator was squawkin’ ’bout the bad economy
It’s gonna get worse you see, we need a change in policy

There’s a local paper rolled up in a rubber band
One more sad story’s one more than I can stand
Just once how I’d like to see the headline say
“Not much to print today, can’t find nothin’ bad to say”, because

Nobody robbed a liquor store on the lower part of town
Nobody OD’ed, nobody burned a single buildin’ down
Nobody fired a shot in anger, nobody had to die in vain
We sure could use a little good news today

I’ll come home this evenin’
I’ll bet that the news will be the same
Somebody takes a hostage, somebody steals a plane
How I wanna hear the anchor man talk about a county fair
And how we cleaned up the air, how everybody learned to care
Whoa, tell me

Nobody was assassinated in the whole Third World today
And in the streets of Ireland, all the children had to do was play
And everybody loves everybody in the good old USA
We sure could use a little good news today

Nobody robbed a liquor store on the lower part of town
Nobody OD’ed, nobody burned a single buildin’ down

Nobody fired a shot in anger, nobody had to die in vain
We sure could use a little good news today

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Jonathan Winters (1925—2013)

“Everybody wants to be funny.”
Jonathan Winters

“In 1981, my sitcom ‘Mork & Mindy’ was about to enter its fourth and final season. The show had run its course and we wanted to go out swinging. The producers suggested hiring Jonathan [Winters] to play my son, who ages backward. That woke me out of a two-year slump. The cavalry was on the way.”
Oscar/Emmy/Grammy-winner Robin Williams
New Your Times article A Madman, but Angelic
4/16/13

Related Post: Screenwriting Quote #61 (Jonathan Winters)

Scott W. Smith

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Post #1,500

Today marks the 1,500 post here on the blog Screenwriting from Iowa. Though it was more than five years ago when I started the blog Screenwriting from Iowa…and Other Unlikely Places, it just doesn’t seem like that long ago. I’m sure when I started I never thought I’d end up writing 1,500 posts.

But that’s what happened. I thought today I’d give you a glimpse into my world and what makes the challenge to write so many posts, but the rewards as well.

Last week I was in Cedar Falls, Iowa working with artist Gary Kelley shooting and editing a multi-media project that will be part of the The Planets, Reimagined concert  April 27, 2013 with conduction Jason Weinberger and the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony.

Today as the exhibits open at NAB in Las Vegas a DP/Cameraman friend of mine, Ben Mesker of Image Garden, is at the CrewsControl booth to promote his Jokerboxes. Here’s a video I edited and help produce with Ben that showcases the benefits of his grip boxes.

Here’s a shot of a of a greenscreen shoot I did a couple of weeks ago where I had a couple of Jokerboxes on the set.

And for the last couple of days I been shooting a four camera production in Orlando. So it’s been a busy last couple of weeks—including several 15+ hour days— but finding time to blog is actually a nice change of pace.

And there are many perks along the way and it comes from those of you who continue to read this blog—and from my recent gig that’s allowed me to wake up with this view the last few days.

Scott W. Smith

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Free Writer’s Contest (w/Will Smith Connection)

Will Smith and James Lassiter of Overbrook Entertainment and the ANA Alliance for Family Entertainment are supporting America’s Newest Screenwriter Contest which I’m passing on to you not only because of the Overbrook connection, or because of its two $5,000 cash prizes (30-Minutes & 1 Hour Drama), but it’s free to enter. (Submissions end March, 21. 2013 and you can find contest requirements here.)

Related Post:

Filmmaking Quote #4 (Will Smith)

Scott W. Smith

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