Tips

Happy Sunday, Creative Army! I hope your weekend has been a creative one so far. Whether you have been writing, filming, editing, or sketching out the next spark of an idea, I have something today that will give you a boost. So grab your coffee, and let's dive in. This week's featured video comes from Panavision: Peter Deming ASC on David Lynch, Horror, and Comedy. Peter Deming has shot Mulholland Drive, Evil Dead II, Scream, and Austin Powers. And the first thing out of his mouth is that...

Hello, Stage32 Creative Community! I hope you’re all doing well in these challenging but exciting creative times. Today, I’d like to talk about networking and how it can change the game for filmmakers. I’m a communicator, but sometimes I’m not! I don’t typically define myself as either an extrovert or an introvert. It depends on the situation, the people around me and, honestly, sometimes simply the day. So, how did I learn to find a balance between those two sides of myself? Before I shar...

Happy Friday, Creative Community! Welcome to the first edition of On Location. Every month, I want to give you something the trades mostly do not: a clear look at where production is physically happening around the world, what is driving the movement, and what it means for the people who actually make things. Crew, ADs, production staff, location managers, actors, and the producers hiring all of them. Because the industry conversation tends to fixate on what is selling. This series is abou...

The credits of yet another franchise movie are rolling. After two hours in a dark theater, the final title card dissolves, and something odd occurs: nothing. You experience nothing. Not a letdown, not pleasure, not the ache that a strong film leaves behind. Only nothing. Before that absence can even become a thought, the platform has already queued the trailer for the next installment.It would be simple to take that as an attack on the people behind the movie, but it is not. I have never met any...

Hey everyone, Sam Rivera here, your Dev Services Coordinator. If you've been following The Industry Pulse, you know we're all about cutting through the noise to find the real signal. And right now, the signal is loud and clear: the traditional path to making movies isn't the only path anymore. I've been watching this wave build from my seat at Stage 32, where I work with writers and filmmakers every day who are trying to find their footing in a changing industry. What's happening right now isn...

When we start writing screenplays, it’s easy to become obsessed with the destination. The meeting. The manager. The producer who loves our script. The competition placement. The option. The words: “We want to make your film.” Those things are the dream. They’re the reason many of us keep putting ourselves through the strange combination of rejection, rewrites, self-doubt and ridiculous hours that comes with trying to build a career in film. But recently, I found myself asking a different q...

Happy Monday, Creative Community! Look at what this community just did together. Through the July Filmmakers Club, we shared our work, took on weekly challenges, learned directly from executives in AMAs, and celebrated each other's wins. Then all through August, we dug into crowdsourcing: how the biggest success stories of the year came from creatives who built their crowds first, and how a crowd that believes in you becomes the engine that carries your career. Two months of the same lesso...

Happy Sunday, Creative Army! I hope your weekend has been a creative one so far. Whether you have been writing, filming, editing, or sketching out the next spark of an idea, I have something today that will give you a boost. So grab your coffee, and let's dive in. This week's featured video comes from StudioBinder: Why Some Cheap Movies Look Expensive. Every filmmaker in this community has had the thought at some point: my film would look better if I had more money. Sometimes that is true....

Why Are We Still Making Film the Old Way? Let me start with a full disclosure. I work for a company that makes some of the products I’m mentioning here. I don’t want you to take that the wrong way. I’m still a filmmaker and actively use tools like these to produce content on literally a daily basis. But I know sometimes people get fussy, think I’m just promoting a product. In this case, that is true, but for all the right reasons. The Old Ways Are Dead I’ve been in the industry for over 30...

When planning an independent production, regional film incentives are frequently discussed as a cornerstone of the financial plan. However, the language surrounding these programs often obscures how they actually operate. In an ethical filmmaking ecosystem, an incentive is not an emotional tool used to accelerate a deal or create a false sense of security. It is a strict, rule-based government mechanism designed to stimulate regional job growth. To be ethical and transparent, a production mus...