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Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they’re yours. -Richard Bach Excuses. Sometimes the most creative thing we do as creatives is make creative excuses for why we can’t be creative (trust me, it makes sense.) Over our last few Happy Writers / Stage 32 Online Pitchfests, we’ve had some amazing success stories. Today I’d like to highlight one of them courtesy of a creative who never argued for his limitations and only made excuses to keep on creating and believing in his skill...

Last summer I was forlornly staring at my computer, a feature spec on the screen and came to the realization in my mind it would likely never sell. As I mourned the loss of my creative baby and remembered the good times, I just couldn’t pull the plug on the first five pages. So I turned them into a short, which I was fortunate enough to have produced. Since then I’ve written many more. I’m finding that not only does it really help hammer home disciplines I should be applying to my feature wr...

I'm thrilled that so many of you found my first blog Making It worthwhile. Today I bring you some Building Blocks of Success for the Theatre Scene. You can use these whether you’re based in New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, London, Ireland, Australia….anywhere in the world. Now get out and make things happen! 1)The agent/manager dilemmas? First, I'm more of a believer of an agent or manager coming to you at the right time; whether it be through a friend, them seeing you in a sho...

My job has always begun in front of the camera at “action” and ended with my director’s call of “cut,” but I was nudged out of my comfortable actor’s niche when I stumbled into the big, broad world of film production. I’ll back up a little. My modeling career began at age one-and-a-half, by age six I had moved on to Ford Models and the NYC stage in off Broadway musicals, and experiencing my first opportunity for the big screen in Mr. Nanny with Hulk Hogan. In 2010, the year I graduated c...

The call came in. Got the part.  Playing a character named Jerry Catone.  Wow. Weeks of auditioning – improvisation at the first audition, going on vacation, and then giving it my all in my call back in front of Jennifer Peri - and it all comes down to the call.  Got the part. Then the flurry of phone calls came in from every department.  Hair and makeup called.  They wanted me to grow my sideburns long because it’s a timepiece from the 1970’s.  Even before I knew I landed the ro...

Entertainment is a social, cultural, and educational phenomenon in whatever form it happens to be – a film, live performance, game, or any interactive channel or device.  Whatever it is, it is part of our lives and doesn’t discriminate as to age, culture, or locale. Entertainment allows us to suspend our beliefs, makes us aware of different points of view, provides new insights, and experience new feelings. And today we are not confined to our homes, theatres or other venues. We can access a...

In publishing, you hear the word NO a lot. From your own critique partners and beta readers --"NO, this scene doesn't work." From agents -- "NO, this isn't right for me to represent." From editors and publishers -- "NO, we don't have room in our line for this."  Sometimes, NO is a good thing. For example, when your scene could use a little more work or when you're career is heading down the wrong path that isn't right for you anyway. But sometimes, NO has nothing to do with your book and your...

This story first appeared in the Nov. 22 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. In the mid-1990s, Ben Stiller spent some time sleeping on David O. Russell's couch. That's when both were struggling to make a name for themselves and working on Russell's second feature, Flirting With Disaster (1996), in which Stiller starred. Decades later, they're two of America's most versatile directors -- Stiller, 47, is responsible for this year's The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, while Russell, 55,...

A few months ago, we joined forces with The Happy Writers for our first Stage 32 Creativefest/Pitchfest.  Our purpose was to offer our screenwriting and filmmaking members a unique opportunity to gain access to top-level managers and executives looking for new talent and material. Our hope was that these executives would find a diamond in the rough here and there. We were wrong. They found a virtual mine. Here are some of the remarkably talented people who have found success through our...

I got on set and we improved all the scenes. I got to work with Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman & Nikolaj Coster Waldau. Then I booked the film called The Tomb, now changed to Escape Plan, with Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Those were the three films I did at the beginning of the year, and then summertime I went back in California to be with my soon-to-be wife. Then I went back to New Orleans to be present for more auditions and I booked a film called Aztec Warrior. That was amazi...