I’ve never met or talked with Scott W. Smith, the founder/writer of Screenwriting From Iowa, but I’m pretty sure we’ve got a couple things in common. When I took the name of Script Gods Must Die it was initially meant as a fun but angry retort to the legions of gurus making false promises to folks just starting in the biz. More recently it’s been focused on Micro-budget– screenwriting and production. The notion that you have to be in Los Angeles to get your career started as a screenwriter is seriously outdated. With so many people making digital films on everything from Canon 5D’s to iPhone 6’s to drones, getting into South By Southwest and Sundance with tiny-budgets, then to sell those movies on dozens of VOD and streaming distribution options– The argument is over.
If it isn’t, Scott W. Smith’s website will end the debate. The title says it all– Stuff happens outside of L.A. Big revelation.
The other thing I admire about the site, and can relate to, is its duration. Scroll down the archives and you’ll see it begins in January ’08. 7 1/2 years! Not many blogs last that long for good reason. It’s not easy to put in the considerable time it takes to produce new content, and to put it out there regularly for little to no compensation. There’s no consultancy tab to hit on Scott’s site which makes him something akin to Mother Theresa. I do consultancy as a side gig from my Columbia College teaching because everybody’s gotta make a living, even those who berate consultants while they themselves sell t-shirts and board games. The hypocrisy is omnipresent, which is why I love this low key website. Scott explains how he started here:
“This blog was born in January 2008 after seeing Diablo Cody’s Juno. The fact that she went to college in Iowa, wrote a distinctly Midwestern screenplay while in Minneapolis, and was discovered while blogging seemed like enough synergy and inspiration for me to jump into the blogging world. Toward the end of 2008 Screenwriting from Iowa won a Regional Emmy in Advanced Media from The Upper Midwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Various productions over the years have taken me to all 50 States and to five continents and I believe there are many great stories waiting to be told outside of L.A. And while you may dream of seeing your work on the big screen, keep in mind that the Internet is bringing many opportunities for the little screen. I hope this blog (and eventually book) helps you tell those stories and encourages you, especially if you feel like you live in an unusual place in the middle-of-nowhere.”
It’s a great mission statement. Here are a couple posts you should check out:
- SCREENWRITING AND THE LITTLE FAT GIRL IN OHIO
“One day some little fat girl in Ohio is going to be the new Mozart.”–Francis Ford Coppola
Digital movie making had made these words prescient. Check out the blog post here where Scott describes how it happened:
“Some people have been asking “Where’s that little fat girl in Ohio?” I think he may have meant Iowa. People get those confused a lot, you know?
But wherever she is she’s on her way. Although she may not make her film using her father’s camera-corder as Coppola suggested, but using her cell phone camera and posting it on the Internet.
Rewind back to 1999 when Steven Spielberg told Katie Couric on the NBC today show, “I think that the Internet is going to effect the most profound change on the entertainment industries combined. And we’re all gonna be tuning into the most popular Internet show in the world, which will be coming from some place in Des Moines.”
As in Des Moines, I-O-W-A. I don’t just make this stuff up, you know?”
- SCREENWRITING DA CHICAGO WAY
Sure, this was the post that drew me into the site. I’m a Chicago-guy, what’d ya expect? He lists about 30 writers from the Chicago area and gives context to movie-making here in Chi by telling the tale of a radiologist named Kyle:
“Kyle is a radiologists living in the suburbs of Chicago. He owns a DV camera package and writes screenplays. In other words he was like every other writer with a dream…until a couple weeks ago.
He wrote a screenplay called The Lemon Tree and had a lawyer he met in Chicago rep him in L.A. and earlier this month sold the script for $300,000 against $600,000. He has no plans to quit his job and move to L.A. The next step is seeing if the film gets made and then if it finds an audience. But as far as a writer outside the system Kyle has hit the jackpot, and proves it can be done.”
- WHERE DO IDEAS COME FROM?
Really hard to pick one more, but let’s go with this long article on idea development. A + B = C has never been more compelling:
“An idea is a feat of association.” Poet Robert Frost
A + B = C
Stephen King writes, “Let’s get one thing clear right now, shall we? There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun. Your job isn’t to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up.”
The more you have in your brain to select and reshuffle, the more creative you will be. My favorite quote in regards to this comes from a creative giant of our day Apple & Pixar’s Steven Jobs:
“Expose yourself to the best things humans have done and then try to bring those things into what you are doing.”
Paul Schrader who wrote Taxi Driver once thought he could write a screenplay with Bob Dylan but realized he couldn’t because while most people think in terms of one, two, three, A, B, C and Dylan thinks in terms of One, blue, banana. ( So in Dylan’s case it may be 1 + Blue + Banana = The Times They Are a-Changin’.)
Just a different way of connecting the dots.”
Great site, Scott W. Smith. Good Reader, go thither!
