Advice

I hope all of you are well and looking forward to making some pretty amazing connections on Stage 32! I am a mother of three girls, one and a half college grads and a little Einstein. My eldest is an entrepreneur and teaches influencers how to grow, increase leads, and sustainability. My middle child attends SCAD and has been in more films than I’ve ever written. My baby girl has mastered 2D, 3D, all things technical more than mommy and preparing to do some work for Crunchyroll. I didn’t sha...

Being a storyteller is a gift and a calling. It requires immense courage to put your work out in the world -- to say, as Seth Godin puts it in his new book The Practice: Shipping Creative Work, “Here, I made this.” He empowers us to think of ourselves as change-makers and reminds us that the world needs us to show up. And he also says something else about the practice of creative work that I think is incredibly profound: “The career of every successful creative is part of a similar practice:...

In the voiceover world, there are a lot of opinions floating around when it comes to Pay to Play (P2P) sites. But why? And what (if any) value do they provide for running a voiceover business? First, let’s talk about what a P2P site is. A Pay to Pay (P2P) site is exactly what it sounds like - a site where voice talent pay a membership (monthly or annually) to have access to a marketplace of auditions. A few of the most common P2P sites for voiceover are Voices.com, Voice123, Bodalgo,...

If there is anything that audiences are most in need of right now, it’s pure escapist entertainment. So, trust us when we say that two of the most sought after genres in Film and Television right now are Sci-Fi and Fantasy! Nearly every streaming service, production company, and studio is looking for an original Sci-Fi or Fantasy concept. Netflix has gone on the record to say they want their version of the STAR WARS and HARRY POTTER franchises. Universal is rebooting THE GREEN HORNET & KATO and...

Happy Valentine's Day Creative Army! Have you had a creative weekend so far? I have some valentine's inspired 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 Take recently did a deep dive into the romantic comedy genre and outlined the formula for the perfect swoon-worthy rom-com. Both lovers and haters of the rom-com genre will learn a thing or two about writing romance from this video essay. You will see examples fr...

Happy Lunar New Year, Stage32-ers! What are you doing to celebrate the Year of the Metal Ox? We’re celebrating by highlighting one particularly stellar Asian-American indie filmmaker who not only weathered the beating of last year’s Year of the Metal Rat, but truly benefited. While we could all do with calmer waters this year, forecasts say to focus on diligence, hard work, and patience. I can’t think of a better example of persistence than today’s Stage32 member! Where so many other independ...

I wasted 8 months of my life, along with a large sum of money, on empty promises and fraudulent contracts from a so-called "producer" who claimed he could get my movie done on a 5 MM budget. He was an incredibly good storyteller but with bad intensions. You see, he was a very skilled con artist that dismantled the hopes and the creativity of many filmmakers. He has been selling lies for years and many innocent people have fallen victim to his scams and still continues to do it to this day....

A Love Letter to 2020: Tips and Tricks for creating a Narrative Podcast in 2021 I was going to start this blog with a clever send-up of all my missteps and foibles in the production of my podcast, Piercing Time, of which there were many. It was going to be a funny, wry and rueful story, with all of the tried and true ingredients that charm and engage readers on the page. But then I realized that I wanted to write a different kind of story, one about faith and friendship across continents and t...

Happy February, Stage 32! By now, I think most of the readers on this site know me pretty well! For those who don’t, I’m a screenwriter, a playwright, a director, a producer, a script doctor of growing repute, a game designer, a novelist, and in all respects a worldbuilder and storyteller. By now, I’ve worked as an executive for more than a decade and I’ve written more than 40 feature film scripts.  My personal backstory is a bizarre and twisted odyssey of life-shattering experiences, ranging...

Please, Think About What You Write I understand that times are tough right now. You feel you have to write towards trends. What's hot. What's popular. Where the industry is headed. Believe me, I get it. But, please, I beg of you, for the love of all that is sacred, please do not write more quarantine dramas right now. No romances during a pandemic. No more "Love in the time of Corona" type stuff. Please, for the love of God. We are about to be inundated with this genre and it's infuri...