Young Iowa talent makes impact on film-making industry

By Jenna Rehnstrom / MORNINGSIDE COLLEGIAN REPORTER / January 13, 2005

Move over Coen and Farrelly brothers, the next dynamic film-making duo may have hit the scene, and they're from our very own state of Iowa.

Though they may not be related, the team of Bryan Woods and Scott Beck from Bettendorf, Iowa, have been making films together since they were in sixth grade, according to The Daily Iowan. Once the pair hit high school, though, they became serious about the art of filmmaking and began studying the process, from shooting to scriptwriting.

Now, Woods, a student at Scott Community College in Bettendorf, and Beck, who attends the University of Iowa, not only write their own screenplays, but also direct and produce them under their own production company, Bluebox Limited. Though only 20-years-old, the young filmmakers have already made 13 shorts and four feature-length films, which have won them four awards in the past seven years from the Iowa Motion Picture Association.

Among their latest honors, Woods and Beck's films have placed in the top 50 out of 1,700 candidates at the Project Greenlight Competition. The contest was created by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, another team of young, talented screenwriters and is sponsored by Miramax Studios, along with the Bravo Channel. Woods and Beck also recently placed among the top three finalists in the MTV's Best Film on Campus Competition.

Tyler Woods, a Morningside sophomore and another native of Bettendorf, recalls the time he spent with the filmmakers in a high school film class.

"Their stuff was really good; I can only imagine, with the time they've spent working on films since then, how good they must have gotten," said Woods.

Their most recent feature film, "Her Summer," which will be screened on the Morningside campus, is an 80 minute film based on the true events of a 1999 murder in Davenport, Iowa. The plot centers on Ethan Crowe, a police officer, whose two brothers are brutally murdered.

After vowing to solve the crime himself, Crowe camps out at the crime scene where he makes a terrible discovery. After Crowe turns-up missing the next morning, two friends unravel the mystery using the remaining material.

Woods and Beck will be present at the screening of "Her Summer" to introduce their feature film and lead the discussion to follow.

This Academic and Cultural Art Series (ACAS) event will be held in the UPS Auditorium in the Lincoln Center on the Morningside College campus tonight at 7:00pm. The event is co-sponsored by Writing on Wednesday (WOW) and Entrepreneurship in the Arts and is open students and the public at no charge.