Screenwriting

There is a particular thrill when your screenwriting career is moving. When you win a contest, option a feature, connect with great talent, or make a new collaborative connection there’s a jolt of creative adrenaline. Last summer, I optioned a feature screenplay. I made a short with an incredible director and cast. I attached a top-level director to one of my TV shows in development who, as a bonus, is absolutely the kind of person it has been incredible to work with. I saw positive interest...

Happy Post-Oscar Monday Stage 32 Crew! There were a lot of great moments during the ceremony and some very deserving winners. If you participated in our annual Oscar picks contest, I hope you did well. I wanted to kick off this week with a great story I have been tracking for a while. It reminds us that every professional relationship starts with a pitch. For those who doubt the power of the pitch, take note of this story. It might just change your mind. It comes from Stage 32 member Emily...

Happy Oscar Sunday Creative Army! Get your coffee ready, because we are about to dive into some white-hot content that will amp you up before the big show tonight. As you have likely seen, The Hollywood Reporter hosts some amazing filmmaker roundtables. This week, our first piece of content is a Writer's Roundtable featuring 2020 Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar-nominees Taika Waititi (Jojo Rabbit) and Anthony McCarten (The Two Popes). Taika and Anthony are joined by fellow screenwriters Lorene...

We signed up to work in a pretty crazy industry. As rewarding as being an artist is, it can also be quite stressful. It is easy to become overwhelmed with the workload or become disheartened and depressed by things not working out the way we planned. An important part of being an artist is the ability to be vulnerable, yet at the same time, be thick-skinned and able to take rejection, criticism, and failure. However, if we are not in a good headspace this can be quite difficult. That’s why it is...

We are all familiar with the vanity that is deeply threaded in the tapestry of the entertainment industry. This vanity often makes us feel we need to look a certain way or pretend to be 26 years old forever to achieve success in the industry. However, especially when it comes to screenwriting, we have often found that being older is not only irrelevant, it may actually be an advantage.  In this week's episode our FREE webinar "Ask Me Anything", Stage 32 Founder and CEO Richard "RB" Botto and S...

Good morning Stage 32 family! Happy Monday! I hope you are all ready to kick off another exciting and action-packed week in creative greatness! To help get us rolling and inspired, I want to share an update from a dear friend in the Stage 32 community. Late last year, I shared the story of Greg Mania, the winner of our 4th Annual Comedy Writing Contest, who wowed the judges with his hilarious semi-autobiographical pilot, “Mania”. Greg is a very talented writer who has written an independently...

Happy Sunday Creative Army! You have your coffee ready? In true Sunday fashion, we have some boiling hot content coming your way. Drink it in before your Superbowl Sunday festivities.  First up, let's get down to basics. When you are on set, it can get a little hectic and overwhelming if you are unprepared. Everyone has a specific job in order to help the production run smoothly and efficiently. In our next video, Cinematic J covers How to Use a Clapper Board. While this job is typically don...

With the Oscars one week away, it is nice to look back on The Academy's collection of Oscar-winners over the years. This impressive library features everything from soul-crushing dramas, to light-hearted musicals. Today, we are going to zoom in on some of the inspirational moments that have come from decades of masterful filmmaking.  Entrepreneur has put together a list of seventeen Oscar-winning films that champion unforgettable inspirational moments. From classics like Laurence of Arabia and...

Creatives usually don’t like being limited or bound by time. Expressing your creative thoughts through words, imagining worlds, coming up with plots and twists, and giving life to characters isn’t something you should rush. But what happens when you face the challenge of rewriting the screenplay? This task usually comes with a deadline that you need to respect. You can be the most talented screenwriter but if you don’t act respectfully towards the people who are willing to bring your play to l...

Officer or enlisted, active duty or the Reserves, by signing your name on that government document, you served your country. Through that service, you gain advantages over your civilian counterparts. Here are 5 of them that are pretty darn important when it comes to screenwriting: 1. It was Against the Law for You to Fail in the Military You signed a government contract that held you legally responsible, on a federal level, to not screw up. You couldn’t just quit because you were having a bad...