Featured Articles

Something remarkable happened at the box office this year, and if you're a filmmaker, it might be the most important lesson of 2026. Two films. Together, they've earned more than $750 million. Neither was built the way Hollywood traditionally builds a hit. They weren't sold on a star's name or a studio's marketing budget. They were built on something far more powerful, and far more available to you than you might think. They were built on an audience that came first. The Thing These Two Fi...

As I mentioned in my previous two blogs, the first part of this journey covered the grueling pre-production of our first no-budget feature film, and the second dove into the absolute fantastic and fun chaos of production. This chapter deals with the madness, the triumphs, and the unexpected twists of the post-production grind. If you missed the first two parts of our journey, you can catch up here: Part 1: The Pure Vortex Journey Begins Part 2: The Pure Vortex Production Chaos Taming...

Writers spend years imagining what success will feel like. We picture the phone call. The option agreement. The producer who falls in love with our script. The first real step forward. We imagine a moment where everything suddenly makes sense. Recently, I asked members of the Stage 32 Writers' Room to share something unexpected they learned once their projects started gaining traction. Their answers revealed something fascinating. Almost nobody talked about success the way they imagined it bef...

My co-founder (in Venture Studio, Vortex), Adam Morley, recently penned a peer-reviewed paper called Beyond Streaming: The New Geography of Audience Value. It's a data-led analysis that highlights the historical to present-day changes in audience behaviours, in how and where they're consuming their entertainment. As much as this statement could feel harsh to a creative ear, "content consumption," I can hear the wails and see the hands to foreheads as I'm writing. It's never been more important...

Happy Sunday, Creative Army! I hope your weekend has been a creative one so far. Whether you have been writing, filming, editing, or sketching out the next spark of an idea, I have something today that will give you a boost. So grab your coffee, and let’s dive in. This week's featured video comes from FilmStack- When an Actor Saved His Career More Than Once. Ben Affleck’s career is one of Hollywood’s most fascinating examples of reinvention. After co-writing Good Will Hunting with Matt Dam...

So you want to create your own content for social media, what do you need? Your phone. The end. Now that’s probably the shortest blog ever, so I’ll elaborate. Your smartphone is an incredibly powerful tool, and if you have nothing else in your arsenal, your phone can do just about anything. There are three important aspects needed to create good content. You need to be clearly seen, clearly heard, and clearly understood. 1- Be Clearly Seen (Video, Lighting) If you’re an actor, you’ve...

...Or, for those who have been attending for years, reintroducing the Writers’ Room Coverage Report! In short, our little weekly LIVE event has always sounded more like a document you receive - REPORT. But what do we really do? We share our work, we exchange our feedback, and we WORKSHOP options for how to implement the most important notes. It’s not a judgement, but rather a starting point to grow from. Honestly, the Coverage Report has always seemed like a red-headed stepchild: admired...

This week, our community is in the middle of July Filmmakers Club, and the focus could not be more fitting: visibility and global storytelling. It's all about looking outward at the wider creative world, celebrating the people and the stories that move it, and lifting each other into the light. So in that spirit, I want to share something I was truly honored to be part of this year: a Main Stage panel at Cannes 2026 about the exact thing our community is built on. Collective power. How...

Exclusively on Stage 32, the LONGEST RUNNING Sci-Fi & Fantasy Screenplay Contest in the World is Back!  Hey Stage 32 Community! Ever dreamt of seeing your Sci-Fi & Fantasy script come to life on the big screen or stream on flat-screens in living rooms across the country? This is your chance to turn that dream into reality! We're proud to announce the 10th Annual Sci-Fi/Fantasy Screenwriting Contest to help discover the next great Sci-Fi or Fantasy script! Our Grand Prize Winner will win a...

There is a phrase our industry loves that I have come to distrust: the overnight success. You know how the story goes. A film premieres, an award is won, a name suddenly appears in every trade publication, and the coverage breathlessly announces that a star has been born. Out of nowhere. Fully formed. As if they simply walked onto a set one morning and into history by evening. Except that is almost never what happened. Behind nearly every "overnight success" is a decade or two… or more of wo...