Success Stories

Good morning, Stage 32 Creative Crew! It’s a brand new week and we are excited to kick it off with some huge news! We are excited to announce that author and screenwriter Greg Mania has officially signed with Cohn/Torgan Management for literary representation! As you probably remember, Greg was the winner of our 4th Annual Comedy Writing Contest with his original pilot, “Mania”. As part of his winning the contest, in October, Stage 32 sent Greg on about a dozen meetings with literary managers...

When I first started writing screenplays, I was a former newspaper journalist with five novels and two novellas under my belt, all traditionally published.I thought screenwriting would be a piece of cake. Wrong answer. It was more like ignorance soufflé with a side order of "What the hell am I doing?" I quickly learned that screenplays are as different from novels as novels are from newspapers. So, as most people with a PC or a Mac would do, I began searching the internet as well as perusing...

Good morning Stage 32 Crew! I hope you had a productive weekend and were able to tackle some of your creative goals. We are cruising through February and spring is just around the corner. I know for a lot of us (myself included) now is the time where distractions creep in and start to derail the resolutions we made for the new year. Are you still doing the work? Remember that success in this highly competitive business is a combination of talent and work ethic.   LA-based Stage 32 members...

It is an honor and a privilege to bring you the worldwide premiere of the 4th Annual Stage 32 Short Film Program! Below you will find six amazing short films to watch that were carefully curated by Stage 32's panel of leading industry executives. Our esteemed panel of judges is made up of top producers, managers, development executives, and Oscar-winning filmmakers.    These films are only available for viewing for 48 hours.   Our six winning filmmakers hail from all over the world, and...

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...

As we get ready to take in the Academy Awards this Sunday, I am tempted to think about some of my own memorable Oscar Moments and the lessons that those moments have taught me over the years. And, not only are they some of my fondest memories to date, but they read like a list of what to do and what not to do.   Sam, Oscar, and Ernie …   As you can see above, I got to hoist Ernie Borgnine’s Best Actor Oscar from 1956 that he won for portraying the title character in Marty. That was nea...

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...

Today in the video below, you're going to see Stage 32 networking at it's finest which resulted in something very cool for our fearless leader, Richard Botto and fellow award-winning filmmaker and Stage 32er Marty Lang.   Back in 2014, RB and Marty met at the Austin Film Festival after being connected through our Stage 32 platform. A friendship grew as Marty went on to be a production manager at Chapman University and RB went on to start writing his book Crowdsourcing for Filmmakers: Indie Fil...

When you are a creative entertainment professional, you never know when inspiration might spark your next film. If you have ever had the pleasure of attending a film festival, you are undoubtedly familiar with the live-wire electricity that flows through festival screenings. The energy and inspiration are so tangible, you feel like you can literally walk right out of the theatre and start filming your next movie! Well, in the case of our fearless leader, Stage 32's CEO Richard "RB" Botto and f...