Filmmaking

It must be the storyteller in me, but I love endings and beginnings. December and January are my two favorite months of the year, in part because of the way they invite us to pause and reflect on where we’ve been and where we’re headed. I’m a planner and a goal-setter by nature and by practice, and I thought I’d share with you how I design my creative year by approaching it like a story. As I’m sure you’ve all discovered, there’s a long-standing divide in the writing world between those who wr...

Looking back on 2021, it's easy to see loss, confusion, and pain. If you look for it, however, I think you'll find the beauty and abundance you crave. For me, I see healing, growth, and productive friction. I can only see the many contributions of our nearly one million global members, the insightful posts of our Community Leaders, and the productive conversations with everyone in between. The Stage 32 community was built on the values that Hollywood all too often takes for granted - positivity,...

Back in October, I sat in my chair and started a journey that really put a lot of things perspective. It was an adventure I never really thought much about. I love music - it’s in my blood. So, when I stumbled on the 21 Days of VGM challenge a while ago, I thought “Oh, I got this.” Making music every day isn’t so bad. Easy. However, I got a rude awakening. It seems simple right? Sit down, get some notation paper or open your DAW and make about 16 bars of music every day and to be honest, it...

"When you’re writing, you’re conjuring. It’s a ritual, and you need to be brave and respectful and sometimes get out of the way of whatever it is that you’re inviting into the room.”-Tom Waits As is often the case with major life changes, my pursuit of screenwriting came quite suddenly. On July 14, 2018, I sat in a Starbucks and considered my career. You see, I had worked in higher education for eight years, and while there was certainly joy to be found there, I wanted more. It was in this mom...

“Move to Montana” is not the advice you’ll get when you tell someone you want to break into the entertainment business. Especially, if like me, you were working at one of the biggest magazines in the country owned by a parent company that also ran TV and movie studios. At that job, I interacted with bold face names and their publicists all day and as writer also interviewed Grammy, Tony, Emmy and Golden Globe winners. You’d think this would be the place to work if you were an aspiring screenw...

Good morning Stage 32 Community! Welcome to the final week of 2021! We’re going to close out this year with a blast and kickstart 2022 with the Top Stage 32 Success Stories of the year! This is the third year I have had the pleasure of writing this blog. It’s really one of the highlights of my year because your success is our success. When members of the Stage 32 community land options, secure representation, go into production, sell scripts, or help others achieve their goals it is a win for...

Happy Sunday Creative Army! I've got my coffee in hand and your weekly dose of content coming in hot - grab your coffee of choice and let's dive right in. First up, our friends over at StudioBinder have a great video about how Quentin Tarantino, David Fincher, and Christopher Nolan direct the power dynamics featured in interrogation scenes. This video breaks down three types of interrogation scenes: transferring power, balancing power, and subverting power. You will see this illustrated with...

On behalf of the entire Stage 32 family, I'd like to wish you all a happy, healthy, and loving Christmas and remainder of the holiday season. While the holidays are a time of celebration, I hope everyone will take a moment to reflect on the many blessings life has offered and afforded all of us. We personally feel blessed to have had so many of you enter and enrich our lives. The Stage 32 community has grown to over 800,000 members from around the globe, and we are beyond honored to provide ea...

Sometimes, aspiring writers ask me a question. What’s one piece of advice you’d give an aspiring writer? Or, if you could tell your younger self one piece of writing advice, what would it be? To properly explain my answer, I need to tell you a little story. After a rather rough few months at the end of 2013, I found myself at the tail end of a six-week writing slump. For the only time in my writing career, I’d only written 300 words in those six weeks (the least I have ever written). So...

A few years ago,  I had the devastating privilege of teaching television and film production to teenagers. Yes, oxymoron intended. Two things became clear early on: these students had no respect for the equipment because they were issued cameras like pacifiers, nor did they understand the value of their human resources due to the emphasis put squarely on technology above all. Guess what we did for the first week? We learned about networking. Man, were they mad. Then again, that could have been b...