Many ISU students have pipe dreams – some hope to live in a big city, some hope to be famous and others hope to make it big doing what they’ve always loved.

For Michael Dahlstrom, those dreams are on the verge of becoming reality.

Dahlstrom, senior in journalism and mass communication and biophysics with a minor in performing arts, is now waiting patiently for a decision regarding his screenplay that is currently being looked over by Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks SKG.

“Throughout the whole thing I’ve decided to wait and see because I don’t want to be disappointed,” Dahlstrom said. “This way, if anything happens, it will be exciting.”

Dahlstrom’s screenplay was written over six years ago when he was on vacation driving around in Sarasota, Fla. He became bored and began drawing, which led to the creation of a story to accompany the drawings.

“It is an animation about four societies of different creatures and what happens when one society tries to take over the others,” Dahlstrom said.

According to Dahlstrom, he had worked on the screenplay but did not know what to do with it until he heard about the Screenwriters’ Boot Camp run every summer in Des Moines.

Robert Jordan, a former story editor for Paramount Pictures, works in conjunction with Shirley Long, the co-founder for the Iowa Motion Picture Association and co-founder of the Iowa Scriptwriters Alliance, at the camp.

“It is not a retreat or a sabbatical,” Long said. “The Boot Camp provides an opportunity to block time to create a screenplay and will teach you what you need to know to develop your ideas.”

Dahlstrom credits the success he has had so far to the Boot Camp he attended three summers ago and to Jordan.

“[The Boot Camp] is definitely why my screenplay is out there,” Dahlstrom said. “I would have had no idea who to take it to.”

“If I didn’t go to the Boot Camp, the screenplay would probably be sitting on my desk and I’d show people and they would say `Oh, cool.'”

Long said that after the Boot Camp is held, Jordan will pitch student screenplays to producers, and he has helped hundreds of students over the last 20 years or so.

She also said Jordan’s students have had many assignments in Los Angeles.

“He will help you get read in Hollywood if you are good enough,” Long said. “The screenwriting process is like anything else you learn. You learn it until it becomes a part of you. It’s a lot of fun.”

Dahlstrom said DreamWorks has had a copy of the screenplay for a year, but the strikes in Hollywood have slowed down the process.

“I definitely hope to be able to give my input [if DreamWorks purchases the screenplay],” Dahlstrom said.

“I have already drawn out a storyboard.”

Dahlstrom’s advice to those aspiring to make it in Hollywood by screenwriting is to write as much as possible.

He said that instead of “focusing on one masterpiece,” writers should create as many ideas as possible and “one or two will turn out really great.”

“The biggest mistake people make is that they drive out west and hope for something to happen,” Dahlstrom said.

“If you have a good script, you can live in the middle of a cornfield and be found.”