Yeah, it’s kinda cold throughout the Midwest these days. According to the weather channel’s website as I type this it’s -13 and feels like -35 here in Iowa. Is that legal?
The cold weather is one of the reasons that half the people in Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin drink so much and why the other half are screenwriters. Visit the various posts I’ve written on those states and you’ll know I’m only half kidding.
Yesterday I was shooting video all day in Tom Arnold’s old stomping grounds of Ottumwa, Iowa. Even shot some footage at his old school, Indian Hills Community College, and was told he was kicked out of the dorms there for rowdy behavior. (If you ever find yourself in Ottumwa make sure to eat a loose meat sandwich at the Canteen Lunch in the Alley which was the inspiration for The Lunchbox in the Roseanne Barr sitcom Roseanne.)
The last shot of the day was a short shot (a very short shot because it was zero outside) in Eldon, Iowa where the house sits that was the inspiration for the house in Grant Wood’s painting American Gothic.
But nothing quite warms my bones like the news of Nick Schenk’s Gran Torino script (that he wrote in Minneapolis) being the number one movie at the box office this week.
But when I think of cold weather now I think of Canada, and of course they have there fair share of creatives up there so I found a screenwriting quote that I dedicate to the them. It’s from the excellent Wordplayer website by writers Terry Russio and Ted Ellott (whose writing credits include Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl).
“If there are two writers, one living in Toronto obsessively focused on quality and craft, and another in Hollywood, looking to make contacts — my money’s on the out of town writer all the way.”
Terry Rossio
I Love LA
Wordplayer Screenwriting Column 33
Screenwriting from Iowa 