Producing

I had contributed articles for TVWriter.com for several years from 2015-2017. I had written a television script called Turbulence project in 2013. I entered it into Larry Brody’s People’s Pilot. It did well the first time winding up somewhere in the middle of the scripts submissions. The second time, it received Semi-Finalist status based on the very readers favorable ratings. At one point, Larry suggested that I turn it into a novel. I discounted the idea at first. After all, I was a screenwri...

So you made a movie. You even have an offer from a sales agent to sell it worldwide. You are excited.Your film is selling in Cannes!It’s selling at the American Film Market!It’s screening at Berlinale!You're having viewing parties with friends and family, showing off the brochure or the listing of your movie in the Trades. You dream about the new movie you will make or the house you'll buy with the profits from the first one, and you're sure there will be so many dollars coming your way from the...

What started it all was the 2016 election. I was at the Napa Valley Film Festival showing my documentary The Lost City of Cecil B DeMille and I remember sitting in my hotel room watching the results come in and being devastated. While in Napa, it dawned on me that I had worked on many other people’s films and it was almost two decades since I had made a film of my own. I’d spent much of this time trying to get one particular project made and was not successful. It felt like I was running out...

Hello Screenwriters. My name is Shaun. I am a Stage 32 Exec, Gotham Award-winning independent film producer, member of the Producers Guild of America, Repped Screenwriter, Script Consultant and educator. I've been in the film and television industry for 28 years and producing for 14 of those years. In that time I have been privileged to work with and learn from some of the greatest filmmakers and performers in our industry - from James Cameron, Steven Spielberg and Judd Apatow to Joe Wright...

DON'T STOP BELIEVING "I've written a play. Can you direct it?" AN OFFER! It was 2013. Two friends of mine recommended to playwright, Robin Pond, that he approach me to direct his play, 'The Retirement Plan', which had been selected to appear at The Toronto Fringe Festival. I had directed plays before, but all of them had been from scripts I had written. However, I was intrigued, and asked Robin to send me his script. I read 'The Retirement Plan', a dark comedy that dealt with a retiring...

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, IGN shares a fascinating behind the scenes look at the adrenaline-pumping fighter jet shots captured in Top Gun: Maverick. In this video, Director Joe Kosinski talks about the 15 month process he and his crew went through working with the Navy to perfect the real in air shots captured for the fil...

I know a lot of people who live very small lives in very small places. The one I actually know the best is me. I’m the woman who was scared to not only leave her home state but also her town until I hit my 40’s. I was scared to fail at everything, including getting from A to B in a car. So I sat, safe, in Penn Valley, Pennsylvania. A divorce thrust me into a new life and I realized if I didn’t take risks that led to failure I was going to disappear off the radar, broke and alone. My first st...

Back in 2010 I shot my first feature film in HDV on miniDV tape. Once finished I formatted the hard drive to make the next project. Unthinkable really, but I did this as I knew HDV wasn’t a great technical standard and I couldn’t afford a new drive. This February I watched sixty or so hours of those tapes import back into Final Cut Pro 7 for a potential remaster. It flashed me back to how naive I was when it came to the data created by film production. Whatever your role in production is, don...

I had the great fortune recently to audition a few wonderful actors for a role in one of my passion projects. Every single one of them was professional, courteous, kind, talented, and funny. As someone who does not consider herself an actress, I’ve never experienced the auditioning process from the other side, and I must say… I cannot imagine what it must be like. Actors are a special and wonderful kind of gang… they are out there, they keep their emotions in a silk purse, ready to come...

There's only one way to break into the show business as a writer and it's different for everyone. My access point to Hollywood has a name: Alexia Melocchi of LITTLE STUDIO FILMS in Beverly Hills, my accomplished, dedicated Manager, a successful entertainment industry professional and a courageous visionary dreamer I was lucky to meet after connecting through a Stage 32 pitch session. Let me thank the entire Stage 32 Team for the great connections they helped me make and Alexia from the bottom...