Advice

The next time you watch a telecast of a major awards show, complete with celebrities, red carpets, adoring fans and the press, consider the small army of artists, technical experts and creative crafts people it takes to initiate, develop and produce the productions that are nominated or honored. No matter what part of the entertainment industry we’re talking about - film, theatre, music, dance, writing, performing, etc. – it literally takes a village comprised of skilled professionals to make...

Anyone who has ever produced anything knows the title 'producer' can also mean: writer, director, actor, wardrobe, casting director, prop master - you get the picture. Amongst all those titles, I got the lucky experience of adding 'editor' to my list. Don’t get me wrong. This was not a one-man job. I have two incredible producers who are part of my team: Ryan Demaree and Peter Marr - and my project would not be what it is today without them. Even with their help, there was still a lot of roo...

With such a vast library of great films to look to as paradigms, you’d think it would be easy to make a great movie. We’re in the age of reboots, adaptations and (dare I say) rip offs, all of which offer a great foundation for us to work from. So why is it that a lot of these fall short? It’s really quite simple. YOU’RE RIPPING OFF THE WRONG THING!! OK, so obviously I should elaborate on this. I’m a person who likes to explain things via analogies. So in this particular case, I’ll use four o...

Much has been said on the topic of non-U.S. actors landing prime acting gigs in Hollywood, but much of it accuses America of offering inferior training, which I don’t believe necessarily to be true. Though it may account for a small part of the difference in success between actors from different countries, for my money there are many other highly influential factors than training alone.   Lower cost, good training Regardless of the standard of acting training, the United States has inc...

An actor walks into an audition and says to him or herself, “If I don’t get this part, that’s it. I am giving up acting.” The list of successful actors that have thought of quitting is long. The path is filled with rejection. You have to know that. Every time you put yourself out there, know that it may be "no" for now, but your big "yes" could be just around the corner. Today, I'm going to go over some famous faces that almost gave up, and, if they had, we'd miss out on some of the best ch...

Last time, I gave you important introductory pointers on how to conduct interviews. Most importantly, I talked about researching your subjects, holding a conversation and not an interrogation, keeping eye contact and making your interviewees feel comfortable. Here are a few more tips that have helped me over the years. PUBLICISTS CAN BE YOUR FRIENDS You’ll run into several kinds of publicists if you’re interviewing celebrities. First, there will be the studio, network or set publicists for t...

I once had an audition for a HUGE casting office that I wanted to read for. When it was my turn to go in, the casting director did this super weird move. No one I had ever encountered, by this point, had ever done it before, and no one's done it since. A SIDE HUG...   ​Striped cat - casting director; Orange cat - me   Being the naturally (hopelessly) awkward person that I am, I stiffened up and tried to smile, (with pretty much just bared teeth) and allowed myself to be side-held by t...

As those in the film industry can relate, the majority of the time you are more likely to hear the word ‘no’ than the word ‘yes.’ This is especially true when you are trying to part the film financier from his money. There may be a number of reasons why a financier will pass on your project and you will no doubt here a variety of reasons from, ‘We already have a similar project in development,’ to ‘It doesn’t fit with our current slate of films,’ or my personal favorite, ‘we have already committ...

I’ve probably done around 10,000 interviews so far in my career. I was terrible when I started. My first interviews were almost unusable. I stammered, stared at my list of questions, froze, had no idea what to do. But I got better. If you keep doing it, keep talking to people, you’ll figure out how to do it. Here’s what I’ve learned over the years that has helped me when I have to sit down and do interviews with stars, experts, persons-on-the-street and everyone in-between.     RESEARCH,...

You can tell a lot about a person the way he or she handles themselves online.  Today our Founder & CEO, RB, goes over why it is so important that you "complete the circle" of who you are online on social media. He talks about how it is a key place for producers and employers to look at who you are and why you should put your best foot forward.  In this 7-minute clip (which is part of his Film Courage interview series), RB goes over why you shouldn't do anything online that you wouldn't do in...