Latest Blogs

I chose to work from home over twenty years ago, for a number of reasons. I’m not only a writer; I’m also a licensed acupuncturist. The busy and crowded waiting room and space I couldn’t make comfortable for my patients just didn’t ring my bell. The hectic pace didn’t work for me either. Most of my patients were better served by a calm and relaxed environment. They liked the sanctuary and quiet space for an hour that could be part of their treatment. So I continued working at home. The commut...

Happy Wednesday Stage 32 Creative Army! As you may recall back in February, long-time Stage 32 member, blog contributor, webinar teacher, and international film & distribution aficionado, David Zannoni began a series of blogs and vlogs to keep you up-to-date on the business of film across the globe. Originally, David was going to be reporting live from Film Festivals and Markets all over the world throughout the year - but alas, COVID-19 has put us all in the same stay at home boat. So today...

  See the latest news on Stage 32 Screenings from DEADLINE Here!     Stage 32 Joins Forces with Fintage House on Stage 32 Screenings As you know, last month, we launched Stage 32 Screenings. This new platform was designed to help displaced filmmakers impacted by cancelled and postponed film festivals around the world screen privately to our network of industry executives and professionals. The goal, to get these films and their filmmakers the attention and success they deserve. Today, w...

Good morning Stage 32 Creatives! Believe it or not, it’s time to kick off another week of creative endeavors. There is no better way to start than to highlight a member of our community who took the bull by the horns, financed and produced his own film and who just signed a shopping agreement with a producer after getting feedback on his pitch deck through a Stage 32 Mentoring Session! Stage 32 member, Antoine Allen is a screenwriter, director and producer. Antoine began his career in the mus...

Happy Sunday Creative Army, Here's hoping you had a healthy and creative week. I've got my coffee in hand and am bringing you some piping-hot content to help you stay creative and inspired while rocking self-quarantine.  First up, the folks over at Nerdwriter have put together an amazing video highlighting one of the many reasons Bong Joon Ho's Oscar-winning film Parasite is so cinematically stellar. In this video, they breakdown the masterful use of montage in scene where (spoiler alert) th...

My name is Matthew Godbey and I’ve been an actor and producer in Hollywood for almost twenty-five years. Over the course of my career, I have had to deal with a multitude of personalities – some bad, most good, but no one in all my years was ever nicer than Henry Winkler. A few years ago, I was on the CBS Studio lot working on a sit-com. While taking a break from rehearsal, standing outside the stage just looking down at my feet, lost in thought, a man approached and said hello. I looked up to...

How I Made a Feature Film for Under £7,500 (or $8,600 for you American folks!)  Boy #5 is a horror feature film set and shot in Manchester, England. The feature marks the debut of first-time director Eric Ian Steele, an award-winning screenwriter and novelist who is the writer of the thriller feature film The Student currently on Netflix USA. THE HORROR BEGINS – DEVELOPING A MICRO BUDGET SCREENPLAY Blame Werner Herzog. Everything was going well until he appeared on the horizon like a magne...

If you are thinking of writing a script that becomes a movie, you need to think like a film studio and distributor if you want to sell the concept. Whether you are going to pitch the idea to a major studio or finance the movie yourself, you need a winning idea that will capture audiences if you want the movie to succeed. That means right from the start you will need to think like a film studio even before you write your script. What follows are some tips that will help you turn your idea into...

How do we snap out of this "whiff of death" stage? That seems to be where we are right now, as the protagonists in our own movies. Everything was “fun and games” until a huge plot twist came out of nowhere. The “bad guys” showed up, potentially lethal, impartial, invisible and moving fast around the globe, hitting us with the “whiff of death”. But all a protagonist needs is a fresh idea to act as a catalyst and propel them to a successful ending. So let’s go find it. The Hidden Gift Luna Love...

Sometimes, aspiring writers ask me a question. What’s one piece of advice you’d give an aspiring writer? Or, if you could tell your younger self one piece of writing advice, what would it be? To properly explain my answer, I need to tell you a little story. After a rather rough few months at the end of 2013, I found myself at the tail end of a six-week writing slump. For the only time in my writing career, I’d only written 300 words in those six weeks (the least I have ever written)....