Filmmaking

Happy Sunday Creative Army! Have you had a creative weekend so far? I have some epic content here for you that is sure to get the creative juices flowing, so grab your coffee and let's dive in. This week, I am thrilled to share a fascinating video from the Netflix Engineering team about how they take a movie from script to screen. This video gives a unique insight into how the promotions and engineering teams at Netflix help ferry their films from screenplay to streaming. They cover everythi...

Happy Screenplay Saturday Stage 32! I hope you all had a beautiful and creative week. I was catching up on the trades this week (following the very sage wisdom of our founder and CEO Richard "RB" Botto: Always read the trades and know what is going on in the business of entertainment!) and I came across an article from Deadline Hollywood about episode 101 of HBO's Lovecraft Country. This script is the first of 10 episodes in this drama/horror mini-series produced by Jordan Peele, J.J. Abrams...

Animation is one of the few genres that has continued during the pandemic in a relatively unharmed way. The fact that animation can to a large extent be produced entirely remotely, put it in the spotlight of the film and television production community when the world came to a halt during the first months of the pandemic. The ability to produce animation remotely, in combination with the availability of cross-border high-quality animation and talent, production incentives, and lower costs, has...

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.” ~ William Shakespeare “Luna” is my 1969 VW bus. She was a well-thought-out, long-time purchase. A transformative place that serves as a traveling home, an office workspace, a holiday destination, and right now at this very minute, my own coffee shop! Luna gives me so much love and joy that I dare not take her for gra...

Happy Wednesday Creative Army! The revolution continues! As you've been hearing me preach for years now, the convergence between tech and entertainment is real and it's spectacular. And now, Entrepreneur Magazine has recognized Stage 32 as the leading social media/educational platform AND marketplace for film, TV, and digital content creators and professionals around the world in this awesome article: Why The Entertainment and Social Media Industries are Converging.The article speaks to how St...

Let’s go back to basics! If you are thinking or overthinking about producing your first short film, you are not alone. These are the 8 things that were around my head when deciding to go for it. 1. Is Making a Short Worthwhile? I hate to reply to this with another question, but you have to ask yourself first: Why do I want to do it? Maybe you want to be an actor and it can be a way to get material for your reel, get credits and exposure. Same with a director or DP. If you are a screenwrite...

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, our friends over at StudioBinder have a great video covering the three types of satire every storyteller should know. In this video, they break down the three types of satire: Juvenalian, Horatian, and Menippean. You will see examples from Jojo Rabbit, Borat, The Dictator, American Beauty, Tropic...

Begin with the end in mind. Know your audience. Work with what you’ve got. We all know the adages, and swat them away to return to the creative deep dive in order to produce compelling characters, unique worlds, and relevant themes. Focusing on our role in order to complete our tasks is part of the creative process, but what if we’re missing part of the collaborative equation? What if the end isn’t just film or television? What if the audience you are trying to reach would enjoy your characters...

Welcome back to part two of "How to Cure Writers Block with Active Structure". If you are just joining me here for part two, please read part one here first. Now, on to part two! PREPARING TO WRITE Now that we have an outline, there are two more steps we need to undertake before we’re ready to start actually writing the movie. Remember, we’re taking that big, huge action that defines the story’s arc as a whole, and we’re breaking it down into pieces that are small enough to wrap our heads aro...

Have you ever worked on a stage play? One of the first things you do in rehearsal is figure out where everyone is supposed to stand. Nobody remembers their lines as everyone is holding scripts. They walk from this mark to another mark, trying to make the actions interesting and motivated. That’s called blocking. According to Wikipedia, "blocking is the precise staging of actors to facilitate the performance of a play, ballet, film or opera".     In filmmaking, that can be done in th...