Advice

As many of you know, the journey of an actor is not without its twists and turns. Fresh out of acting school, one doesn’t picture a day when the compass is lost and the all-consuming career is set aside, sometimes without conscious thought. This happened to me. One day I woke up and realized that, without having made any decision to do so, I’d been out of the industry for years, many of which were focused on creating my own web series. My web series came about by accident. I’d been challen...

If you're an actor, you know that looking for the next gig is always on your radar. Actors today have more options than ever to find work. Actor, filmmaker, and director Elyes Gabel has appeared on Game of Thrones, World War Z, Scorpion and more! He was on a Stage 32 panel at the Hollyshorts Film Festival and shared some advice on how his fellow actors can maximize their reach with casting directors... Click Here For Elyes' Advice!       Remember, if you haven't subscribed to our YouTube...

As creators, we are essentially entrepreneurs. Even if we hold a job of sorts, we still work as contractors and freelancers. Some of us even manage a production company or other small business. And to make it work... We've been told to work hard. We've been told to continue the grind.And we've been told not to waste a single minute as we reach for the stars. Alexis Ohaniaof Reddit While this is true to a fault, for some, these statements can be misinterpreted as working endlessly and with...

I’ve been in this industry for several years and in that time, I’ve seen dozens of talented people give up because success didn’t come when they wanted it to. It didn’t come in an expected time frame and therefore, they left town. Maybe they spent some time at an agency before they packed it in. Maybe in that time they booked a few commercials. But they got tired because nothing else ever came beyond those commercials. And when they got tired, they gave up and drifted away. It sounds brutal,...

Happy Sunday, everyone.  Hope you're all enjoying Introduce Yourself Weekend. Coming to you live from the Seattle Film Summit where Stage 32 is serving as the education partner.  It's been an inspiring few days of speaking and mentoring.  Also been fantastic to meet so many Stage 32 members in person. You might think all this would prevent me from bringing you Coffee & Content.  You'd be dead wrong!  Let's get to it. First, from Art and Story, a deep dive into text, subtext, and context. ...

By now you've read dozens of articles on the passing of Stan Lee. Me too. But there's one that caught my eye that was written by Stan Lee in 1947 titled: There's Money In Comics! The publication sold for a mere 25 cents, but the information he shared is priceless.   Lee wrote the article for Writer's Digest when he was in his mid-20's. To serve his memory and offer a piece of writing history that can still teach writers something today, Writer's Digest republished the article that shares...

  It’s simple: to be successful as a voice actor, you have to be productive. A recent research report on How to Become a Successful Voice Actor found that voice actors who auditioned 7 or more times per day stood to make up to $20,000 more per year. However, voice actors also face the challenge of having their productivity tied to their ability to be creative on demand. This is not only difficult, it can be downright draining. So what can the average voice actor do to be their most productiv...

I recently attended a panel discussion on writer’s rooms and wanted to share some of the insights offered by the panelists who are two prominent showrunners from network and cable: A streaming network executive, and a production company executive. The questions they answered were: - What do showrunners look for when they hire writers? - What is the process for hiring? - How are rooms different in network vs. cable and streaming? - What if you create a show and the studio wants to bring in an e...

When a writer wants to know the best way to pitch his or her project to Netflix or Amazon, it's important that they recognize something before they even entertain the notion: Know thy people around you, first. During his free webinar, "Ask Me Anything," RB answered this question frankly and thoroughly. If you think your show has the legs to get a meeting with Netflix, there are three key questions you need to ask yourself first: 1) Why you?2) Why now?3) What value are you bringing? Cli...

"Finding out that the rights were available was a small victory in our minds. Yet, we still had to prove ourselves to gain Ron’s blessing. After all, to him, we were just a couple of young, idealistic strangers with a Hollywood pipe dream. We had no track record." Ron Stallworth was a police officer in the 1970's who managed to weasel his way into the good graces of the Ku Klux Klan undercover, convincing them he was white supremacist. Later, he wrote a memoir about his experiences, which cau...