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In car parlance, I might be a barn find -- a dust-covered vehicle that’s been unearthed after many years of storage. I wasn’t exactly in storage, but I was in the barn for 40 years, inching toward the door -- i.e., my lifelong goal to be a working actress. I worked 9 to 5 and was a single parent and couldn’t get an LA agent, so I simply did what I could around those parameters. For decades. At times, my forward progress seemed imperceptible. Then, in 2022, I went from zero ability to get an ag...

You've seen plenty of film sets fall apart over handshake deals gone wrong. Contracts might be boring, but they're what keep your project from imploding when things get messy. And they always get messy when money and deadlines collide! As you may be aware, good contracts save productions. However, bad ones kill them. We’ve seen million-dollar projects collapse because someone thought a text message was enough to secure rights. Spend the time upfront or pay for it later, usually in court!...

Happy New Year, Creative Army! I hope you all had a restful, meaningful holiday season and are stepping into this new year feeling energized, inspired, and ready to create. Whether you spent the last couple of weeks reflecting, recharging, or quietly plotting your next move, today is your starting line. As many of you know, every New Year’s Day, we use the Stage 32 Blog to pause, reset, and look ahead together. This tradition isn’t about resolutions that fade by February. It’s about intentio...

Some of you may be familiar with Blake Snyder’s book, Save the Cat, in which he lays out the important steps for hitting all the required elements in a screenplay. For those who are not familiar with this book, I would highly recommend you read it before tackling your next script. What I want to focus on here is a template I created based on his suggestions for architecting the story before sitting down and starting to write. Given my business experience as a project manager, I am always...

This past October, I had the pleasure of attending Iberseries Platino Industria (IPI) in Madrid, a yearly film & television market, organized by EGEDA & Secuoya Studios, where the Spanish and Latin American audiovisual industries come together to collaborate and shape the future of content creation in Spanish, international co-production, and local production incentives. Over the years, in my capacities as consultant for Freeway Entertainment, owner of Zannoni Media, delegate of CANACINE Quin...

The El Paso Film & Creative Industries Film Commission has just partnered up with Stage 32 Certification to bring their top-tier, industry-backed training courses straight to our talented regional film community. This strategic partnership comes at a truly transformational time for our creative scene, as our area’s film and media industry keeps growing, fueled by our trademark Borderland energy, diversity, and “can-do” attitude. Stage 32 Certification offers practical, hands-on training design...

Happy Sunday, Creative Army! I hope your weekend has been a creative one so far. Whether you’ve been writing, filming, editing, or sketching out the next spark of an idea, I’ve got something today that will give you a boost. So grab your coffee, and let’s dive in. This week’s featured video comes from StudioBinder and explores a question that’s fascinated filmmakers for decades: What makes Studio Ghibli’s work so powerful—and why is it nearly impossible to replicate? In The Secret Behind S...

In 2020, I wrote a Stage 32 blog about how to use struggles as creative fuel: When Life Gives You Lemons, Open a Lemonade Company - How to Use Struggles as Creative Fuel. In the last paragraph of that blog, I wrote: "Although I did not find a new well-paid job, I would not change it for the world. And I have confidence in the universe." Shortly after posting my blog on Stage 32, a published author contacted me, mentioning that she had read my wonderful blog and would like to connect. Thi...

We all have characters we love. The ones that stay with us, that inspired us when we were children, made us laugh as adults, and share memories with family as we watched. It is a truly rewarding experience when animation artists breathe life into their characters by creating movement as though they’re real humans. But how does this happen? How can you make your characters alive in animation? Here are 11 tips to successfully create characters that feel as grounded and realistic as they are...

Happy Holidays, Creative Army! On behalf of the entire Stage 32 family, I want to wish you and your loved ones a very happy, healthy, and peaceful Christmas and the remainder of the holiday season. The holidays are often filled with celebration, but they’re also a moment to pause, reflect, and take stock of the journey we’ve all been on together. No matter where you are in the world or where you are in your creative career, I hope you’re able to take a breath, feel proud of how far you’ve co...