Scott W. Smith - Screenwriting with Brass Knuckles : Book 1

Screenwriting with Brass Knuckles

Book 1

Scott W. Smith

Copyright 2020 Scott W. Smith

All rights reserved
ISBN: 978-0-578-75001-9
ISBN: 978-0-692-06291-3 (eBook)
Book Cover Design
Predrag Capo
(CsapoDesign at 99designs.com)

For Annye Refoe, Ph.D.
who pointed the way beyond the eighty-yard run.

Contents

Acknowledgements

A small tribe of people helped this book become a reality:

Edd Blott, Amy Bosley, Casey Frechette, Terry Groner, Cindy Gustafson, Kelsey Holm, Steve Holm, Calvin Johannsen, Gary Kelley, Joel Laneville, Adam Lewis and the gang at Spinutech, Michael Maguire, Josh McCabe, Trish Miceli, Curt Moore, Doug Nairn, Lisa Oharek, Matthew Porter, Sally Preston, Marc Reifenrath, Julie Smith, Ken Steele, Kevin A. Thomas, Jon Van Allen, and readers of the blog Screenwriting from Iowa... and Other Unlikely Places

Editor
Scott Draper

Foreword

Note: Scott Beck and Bryan Woods wrote the screenwriting equivalent of brass knuckles with their screenplay A Quiet Place. They had humble beginnings starting in a middle school in Iowa where they metless than 30 miles from Dyersville, Iowa where Field of Dreams was shot and the words If you build it, he will come were first spoken on film.SWS

Preface

I wasnt born knowing how to write a play.

Sam Shepard, Pulitzer Prize winning playwright

I wrote screenplays as a way to get into production. I wrote six or seven before I sold one.

Lawrence Kasdan (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars: Episode V)

In the more than 12 years of writing the blog Screenwriting from Iowa... and Other Unlikely Places , Ive found advice and insight on the creative process from more than 700 gifted screenwriters, filmmakers, and teachers. I realized that I could consolidate and curate the most powerful of that material as a book, revising and reorganizing it in ways that I thought would be most helpful to peoples creative journeys. I want these ideas to function like brass knuckles in an old-school professional wrestling match.

I dont know if Aristotle ever used brass knuckles, but they are said to have been around since the ancient Greeks. President Abraham Lincolns secret service men carried brass knuckles. And legend has it that brass knuckles were gangster Al Capones favorite weapon.

The term loaded fist in Japanese martial arts refers to a martial arts version of brass knuckles that can turn a punch into a sledgehammer. As a troubled youth in Hong Kong, Bruce Lee carried brass knuckles, giving a twist of meaning to his trademark movie Fist of Fury.

Today brass knuckles are brandished in popular video games and music videos. Spike Lee even wore brass knuckles to the 2019 Academy Awards.

My introduction to brass knuckles was watching professional wrestling on TV as a kid. This was not the high-dollar spectacle of today but the low-budget version, usually taped in a small studio in Tampa, Florida.

Actor Dwayne The Rock Johnsons father, Rocky Johnson, was a wrestler in the pre-WWE era when professional wrestling was more regionally orientated and the bag of tricks and storylines were more limited. (Rocky Johnson was actually the 1976 NWA Brass Knuckles Champion.)

This was at a time in my youth when I didnt know if professional wrestling was real or not. What I did know was that professional wrestling had a cast of characters with colorful names like Abdullah the Butcher, Andr the Giant, and Dusty The American Dream Rhodes and it was flat out entertaining. (Rhodes was the main influence Hulk Hogan used as Hulkamania helped transform pro wrestling into a global phenomenon.)

Inevitably, back then when one wrestler was getting beat up and close to losing a match, brass knuckles would magically appear (usually emerging from someones wrestling trunks).

The announcer Gordon Solie would say something like, Wait a minute, whats he have in his right hand? It looks like a foreign object. Oh no, it looks like a pair of brass knuckles!