Filmmaking

Happy Sunday Creative Army! First of all, congratulations to all of you who have already participated in our monthly Introduce Yourself Weekend! Thousands of connections have been made between entertainment creatives and professionals from every corner of the globe. Whether you are a long-time member, or brand new to Stage 32, take a moment to pop over to the Introduce Yourself Lounge and say hello before the end of the weekend. First up, Film Riot shares an interesting video featuring 5 cre...

Since my appointment as delegate of the Mexican National Chamber of the Film Industry (CANACINE) for the State of Quintana Roo, also known as the Mexican Caribbean, I have become familiar with the phenomenon screen tourism. In fact, screen tourism is becoming one of the key elements in policy making for the audiovisual industry in Quintana Roo, which includes what nowadays can be considered Mexico’s most important beach tourist areas. In this article I will explain what screen tourism is, ho...

THE PROBLEM Starting in 2002, for the past 20 years to the present, during the evenings and weekends, I have been feverishly writing, adapting, and pitching a number of feature picture screenplays with no success in getting the projects greenlit or optioned neither by buyers, agents nor producers. Meanwhile, all this time my day job has been in relatively non-creative realm of high-tech. Does this story sound familiar? Every writer/filmmaker I've run into experiences a closed and ineffic...

Imagine the scene. A film composer sits in the cinema. The adverts are rolling, the popcorn is flowing, the trailers are, well, trailering- then suddenly a familiar sound hits the composer’s ears. “Did I write this track?... No…. Hmm. What sounds familiar?... Something in there rings a bell…. Oh! The piano/strings/synths/drums. The composer is using X library!” Whilst there is a seemingly infinite number of libraries available for composers to use, there’s actually a very small pool of commonl...

Most readers purchase novels by their favorite authors for the new and exciting plot. They want to follow their favorite policeman / CIA agent in their latest attempt to thwart the villain and save humanity. They marvel at the intricate twists and turns of the plot. In a mystery, the readers attempt to catch the clues that the author planted along the way. They want to be surprised at how the story concludes but also satisfaction in that they discovered the clues only to be revealed and explaine...

"Power is a place as well as a verb. It is inside the information tent.” -Lynda Obst The quote above is from the book Hello, He Lied, a must-read book on producing.The book is written by a trailblazer who did it all and saw it all, Lynda Obst. Being a female producer in Hollywood isn't easy. When I decided to expand my horizons and became a film producer, I felt I was ahead of the game because I knew what it took to finance a movie as worldwide sales agent and distributors’ rep. How hard cou...

Animated features and series bring the imagination to life. Animation is so important to the entertainment industry because of the way it connects with every person out there. In such divisive times, we need these films and series more than ever. Recent films like SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDERVERSE or ENCANTO have captured the attention of wide audiences with their amazing graphics and deep themes. Long-running series like THE SIMPSONS and BOB'S BURGERS bring out the edgy and quirky side of animat...

Happy Sunday Creative Army! Have you had a creative weekend so far? I have some 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 Stranger Things official YouTube channel recently released an awesome behind the scenes look at season four of Netflix's Stranger Things. This videos follows cast members Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo, and more around on a "day in the life" look at a typical day on the se...

I wrote this blog to give writers some encouragement on something I've noticed when working with clients, who don't seem to understand the feedback responses from producers after they have submitted their scripts for consideration. It's happened quite a few times now, where people have entered their scripts to The Writers' Room, also to producers outside of Stage 32 and they have come back to me saying they've had feedback and that the producer they sent their work to hates the script. I hav...

If you’ve been pursuing your Hollywood dreams longer than 60 seconds, then you probably know all about rejection. It’s part of the path. It’s something completely unavoidable as long as you’re taking risks and putting yourself out there. Some rejections aren’t so bad. Others totally suck. When a rejection hits deep, it’s common to retreat and hold yourself back from trying again. Whether you get dropped by an agent, your script is rejected from every festival, or you haven’t booked a job i...