Advice

Less Woo and More Do: The Four P’s Four Practical Habits to Help Creatives Stay Grounded and Achieve Consistent Results. "It is better to take many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward." - Chinese proverb As actors, we all have huge dreams and aspirations: one day winning an Oscar, being on a Broadway stage, getting into Marvel-ready shape, or getting that top-tier agent. For better or worse, we think big and relentlessly pursue o...

About a year ago, I was officially diagnosed with Chronic Intractable Migraine after about eight months of various doctors, tests, and medicine. In layman’s terms, it means that I constantly have a headache. All-day. Every day. This has dramatically affected how I write. Honestly, there are days when I hate it. Long gone are the times when I could plop into my desk chair and write for hours on end and crank out thousands of words at a time. Brian fog has killed that.     One of t...

As creatives, we can all probably remember the first person who took notice of the unique turn of our minds and chose to affirm it – whether that was a teacher, a parent, a friend, a sibling, or an early fan of our work. This person’s words might have given us exactly the encouragement we needed at exactly the right time. The truth is, it’s very easy for the self-doubt, the self-criticism, Imposter Syndrome, fear, and the inner forces of Resistance to win the day. There’s a reason why there ar...

Happy Sunday Creative Army! Have you had a creative weekend so far? I have some content here for you that is sure to get the creative juices flowing, so grab your coffee and let's dive in. First up, the folks over at Film Riot have an awesome video about how to make the Bat-signal visual effect. With the newest addition to the Batman franchise in theaters now, I thought it would be fun to share this great After Effects tutorial on how to make the iconic Bat-signal. Better yet, this tutorial...

I left the embodiment of my networking circles, not once, not twice; more than twice. I would exit in and out again and again; it was a vicious cycle of character imbalance, one big shot of emotionalism and mental health unsteadiness in my life as a creative. Now that I’ve finally fled it, I’m here to share with you how I have managed to touch the sky. As a creative one of the remedies you need to subdue emotionalism mental health incapacitation, you need to… Let Your Artistry Define You In...

As the COVID pandemic started to wreak havoc around the world two years ago, the wheels of the film industry came to a grinding halt. This was a unanimous decision by the industry although not mandatory as film was deemed an “essential service.” Facing the challenges of the pandemic, the question for filmmakers was how to return to work in this brave new world? As a producer based in Vancouver, Canada, I worked on the last show here to complete principal photography before the shutdown. As...

Happy Wednesday Creative Army! I hope you are having a beautiful and creative week so far. Today, I have an exciting and inspirational podcast to share with you! Recently, Stage 32 CEO Richard "RB" Botto was a featured guest on the business & finance podcast Life Blood.  In this episode, RB and podcast host George Grombacher talk about the creator economy, how to make authentic and invaluable industry connections, how the entertainment business and traditional barriers to entry have change...

We all need a little help, every now and then. One of the greatest things about being a writer is that there are so many tools out there designed to help us. The problem is, people don’t know they exist. When you’re a writer, you have to be a Jack (or Jill) of many trades and learn not just about writing, but about editing, and the business itself. It’s all part of honing our craft. And while, at times, the task may seem daunting, I’ve discovered a lot of online resources that I’ve found to...

I can see the first sunshine after days of rain so I’ll put off writing this blog. I want to go outside for a walk. But I’m also using a technique that harnesses the power of procrastination to get the blog in my head so I can ruminate on it while walking. The terms ‘rumination’ and ‘procrastination’ come with a lot of baggage. Procrastination is defined as: ‘the action of delaying or postponing something knowing full well the negative outcomes of doing so’. That can cause a lot of anxiety m...

I watched my first horror movie with my father when I was eight. He tried his best to distract my eight-year-old self from the horror with a hilarious running dialogue throughout the movie, although I still ended up in bed that night with my parents. My father is gone now, but my love for horror and comedy runs deep and about four years ago, I thought I’d try my hand at putting the two together on paper. I had no clue what I was doing. I had always loved writing but I came from a short story...