Advice

It is thrilling after all your work on a film, to have the exhilarating experience of a dynamic and successful Q & A at a film festival with a packed audience. Conversely, most of us have experienced the shock of seeing a Q &A where no questions were asked. Worse, is having your short screened with others and ending up the only one not having a questioned asked after hearing, “Well, guys, that’s all we have time for as the next film is coming in”. You Can Pack Those Screenings You can have ja...

Happy December Creative Army! I've got my coffee brewing and some white-hot content coming your way. First up, The Take speaks with some Sundance-official directors about the craft of directing films. They answer questions like: What's your process for working with actors? What are some visual techniques you've used? and more! Next, for all you comedy fans out there, the SAG-AFTRA Foundation recently sat down with the legendary Eddie Murphy to talk about his amazing career over the...

From the entire Stage 32 team, we wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving. Let me be the first to say, I am incredibly grateful for every single person that is a part of the Stage 32 creative army. I am forever in awe of the amazing connections, projects, and friendships that have grown out of our community.  As always, here at Stage 32, we aim to help entertainment creatives make connections and share their stories with the world. In our 8 years, we have had nearly 2,000 articles written by our ep...

New people flock to LA every day with big dreams and their hearts set on "making it". However, as anyone who has moved to LA for entertainment can tell you, no one is going to roll out a red carpet for you just for showing up.  Often times, arriving in "tinsel town" can be a lonely and unforgiving place. Fortunately, our two favorite New Yorkers in Hollywood have teamed up to teach you What You'll Learn When You First Get into Entertainment & What Not to Do. In this clip from his FREE webina...

In my blogs on “How We Screwed the Showbiz Culture Up” and “Why I Passed On That Screenplay,” I talk a fair bit of trash about how the ethical and creative practices of Hollywood’s development process have strayed from the fundamentals that made this industry strong. By far, the most common and rational response to the ideas I’m expressing in these rants is that “THIS IS A BUSINESS.” If we get caught up in the creative - or even the ethical - needs of our projects and our community, we’re making...

A very Happy Thanksgiving week to you Creative Army! This Sunday, we've got some great content for all you filmmakers out there. My coffee's brewing, how about yours? First on the docket, can your project's title shape how you write your story? Writer/Director Taika Waititi (Jojo Rabbit, Thor: Ragnarok, What We Do in the Shadows) thinks so! Learn more in his interview with our friends over at IndieWire.  Next up, film editor Tom Cross (La La Land, Whiplash, First Man, Joy) tells the folks...

For the last two years, I have been working on my screenplay, THE POSTCARD. It is based on the true story of my Great Grandparents and all I wanted to do was write a little thing about their story, that wouldn't take too long, I thought around a 20/30 minute short... Two years later, I'm still writing it.   The postcard my Great Grandfather Harry sent to my Great Grandmother Rebecca from the Titanic in 1912.   I was doing okay, but as I was writing it, I found that if I was going t...

Becoming a screenwriter is a truly incredible process, that will challenge you, reward you, disappoint you, but never bore you. That being said, it’s important to go into this path with eyes wide open, and know the truth about being a screenwriter. These are the top 5 myths about being a screenwriter that you should know first. Myth #1 - It Doesn’t Involve Much Writing Although screenplays are short, usually from 90 to 100 pages, with a lot of empty space on the page, they can actually be mu...

Getting paid for being a filmmaker is an art form and rarely taken to heart, so artists starve for their craft. This image of the "starving artist" must not and should not be perpetuated. Most people believe that the work of a writer, a producer, a filmmaker is based on passion alone, and as a result it is assumed that all artists are meant to work for free, or to get paid later, because their passion for the craft will make them accept work under any condition, including the freebies or the inf...

Probably the most coveted of all Hollywood’s many careers and titles, more widely sought after even than the dream of becoming a movie star itself, is the position of “idea guy.” Someone has to be doing this job, according to popular wisdom. What’s more, all the remakes and adaptations we see in theaters today make it clear beyond doubt that this person, whoever they are, is doing a pretty terrible job. If someone is going to sit in a room all day, getting paid millions and millions of dollars a...