Advice

On behalf of the entire Stage 32 family, I'd like to wish you all a happy, healthy, and loving Christmas and remainder of the holiday season. While the holidays are a time of celebration, I hope everyone will take a moment to reflect on the many blessings life has offered and afforded all of us. We personally feel blessed to have had so many of you enter and enrich our lives. The Stage 32 community has grown to over 800,000 members from around the globe, and we are beyond honored to provide ea...

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). So...

A few years ago,  I had the devastating privilege of teaching television and film production to teenagers. Yes, oxymoron intended. Two things became clear early on: these students had no respect for the equipment because they were issued cameras like pacifiers, nor did they understand the value of their human resources due to the emphasis put squarely on technology above all. Guess what we did for the first week? We learned about networking. Man, were they mad. Then again, that could have been b...

Happy Wednesday Creative Army! Stage 32's continued mission is to democratize the entertainment business and the industry is taking notice in a big way. We are incredibly proud and honored that Stage 32 has been featured recently in Forbes Magazine, Business Insider, Inc. Magazine, and now, for the second time, Hackernoon.  As many of you have likely heard, we are partnering with Netflix (again!) to bring even more education to entertainment creatives and professionals from around the globe...

Anyone else finding themselves looking at the calendar these days going, “It’s what month already? How?” Don’t get me wrong – I love this time of year. It feels good to be finishing something – and it especially feels good to think about the new beginning right on the other side of it. If you’ve followed me for any amount of time, you’ve probably noticed that I love talking about process. I love systems that make it easier for me to achieve the goals I set for myself, and I’m constantly evalua...

Happy Sunday Creative Army! First of all, congratulations to all of you who have already participated in our monthly Introduce Yourself Weekend! Thousands of connections have been made between entertainment creatives and professionals from every corner of the globe. Whether you are a long-time member, or brand new to Stage 32, take a moment to pop over to the Introduce Yourself Lounge and say hello before the end of the weekend. Now, grab some fresh coffee and let's dive into this week's conte...

Before I taught film and television production to teenagers, before I developed a comprehensive internship program within a production company, and before I shepherded freshman theatre technicians through grueling lighting hangs and late-night set strikes, I myself was mentored. I owe a great debt of gratitude to my first mentor; my mother. She is an expert in adult education and a retired computer specialist, so it may be no surprise to learn she was incredibly methodical when training me. Don'...

If you’re anything like me, you have an inexplicable need to tell stories. It’s what excites you, what’s always in the back of your mind while you’re seeming to be living your life when actually you’re assembling and reassembling story fragments due to a flood of inspiration that unexpectedly assaults your imagination. Nobody dedicates their lives to becoming a filmmaker because it’s easy. It is a life that sounds torturous to an outsider -- and it is to an extent -- but it’s also wonderful a...

Rule 1: Never tell the audience what they already know. Rule 2: Knowing what to leave out is as important as what to leave in.   The crux of this blog is "Never dramatize what the reader can imagine for themselves"; at least for on-screen drama. Novelists may need to give this some thought. But for screenwriters letting the audience fill in the blanks of the on-screen story with their own imagination is infinitely more effective and powerful then walking them thro...

Several years ago I decided that I wanted to get a degree in film and television from the highly competitive film school at New York University. There was one major obstacle though... I was a high school drop out. What are the odds of my being accepted into this school and program? Not very good, but I decided (call it naivety, blind faith, insanity or whatnot) it was not only possible, but it was going to be my reality. I put one foot in front of the other, busted my butt as if it were life or...