Screenwriting

Greetings from Hollywood. It's been an amazing two weeks at the Hollyshorts Film Festival.  Not only did Stage 32 help program a number of the informative and inspirational panels at the festival, but last night we had the LA premiere screening of our Short Film Program.  7 Stage 32 filmmakers had their films shown to a crowd peppered with industry executives.  The response was overwhelmingly positive and many of our filmmakers walked away with meetings and further interest in developing their...

As a producer/director, I'm asked to read scripts all the time. What I mostly encounter are scripts that aren't ready for production. No even close. How do you know if your script is production ready? Here are nine questions to ask yourself about your script:     1: Does your screenplay use a Three-Act Structure? The Three-Act Structure is a classic hero's journey that divides your story into three parts (or Acts); Setup, Confrontation and the Resolution. I'm recommending this approach...

If you haven't seen by now, we have launched Stage 32 Locations - Powered By Peerspace. You can find it on the top menu bar. This is an incredible new tool for our creative community that helps you find locations for your film shoots, writing groups, casting calls or production needs.   Stage 32 and Peerspace got together this week to celebrate all the new locations launched in the Los Angeles area, as well as Peerspace reaching a milestone of 6,000 new spaces for creatives to rent. Hundreds o...

We’re extremely excited to announce this year’s Sci-Fi and Fantasy Screenwriting Contest Winner & 2nd Place Runner Up! Our industry judges were completely blown away by the imagination and talent of these scribes. So much so that our Grand Prize Winner has already had a meeting with Daniel Vang from Good Fear Film + Management! It's about to be a whirlwind as these scripts get heat on them around the executive community.  Join us as we congratulate these writers!   Grand Prize Winner Ben Gr...

Two years ago, I became ranked in the Top 10 of Up-and-Coming Hollywood Directors Under 40 on IMDb (Internet Movie Database) and was featured on the front page of the Hollywood Reporter. I’ve been fortunate enough to direct many name actors including an Oscar-Nominated and Golden Globe winning actor and am attached to direct several multi-million dollar projects over the next few years. I also co-run LA Acting Studios, which is an intense on-camera, set-like scene study class in Los Angeles.  ...

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For the last month I've had the pleasure of working with Roger S. H. Schulman, the Oscar-nominated and BAFTA award winning writer of SHREK. Roger's impressive roster also includes being a scribe for Steven Spielberg Executive Produced BALTO, as well as two Disney films MULAN II, THE JUNGLE BOOK II, and plenty of other features and TV shows. I'm thrilled to bring in Roger as a special guest for Stage 32 THIS SATURDAY to teach a Masterclass on Creating Compelling Characters. I mean, the waffle l...

What happens when you put 2 New Yorkers in Hollywood? Well, we found out in the most recent "On Stage With RB" special webcast - "2 New Yorkers in Hollywood". This fun, educational and definitely entertaining webcast featured our fearless leader, Richard "RB" Botto, and special guest Bradley Gallo, CCO of Amasia Entertainment. For those of you new to Stage 32 and may not know the hosts, RB is the founder & CEO of Stage 32, an actor & voice actor, producer (ANOTHER HAPPY DAY, (Demi Moore, Kate...

Happy Sunday to you all.  Hope you're having a fantastic weekend. In this edition of Coffee & Content, we go back to P.T. Anderson and a cut by cut breakdown of There Will Be Blood.  We also turn our attention to Dunkirk director Christopher Nolan and his pluses and minuses as a filmmaker and storyteller. As always, I ask you to share this content where you can on your other social media accounts through the handy share buttons at the top of this blog.  Pay it forward. Enjoy the content an...

This blog may be stating the obvious and I don't want to come across as condescending, but I just thought I would impart a piece of advice I have recently given to a client of mine. I have found while doing my job as an editor, that I have a great responsibility, not just to the authors I work with, but to the work itself. It's not just about spelling and grammar, it is also about what is best for the story and looking at something from the point of view of the reader. I do know of course that...