Screenwriting

Ever been to - or coordinated - a wedding? A special birthday party? Perhaps a charity event, musical concert, or film festival? More than likely, you have benefited from a wonderful person employing Location Scouting for a truly enjoyable experience. Or possibly been rudely introduced to the perils of poor Location Scouting when you couldn’t park, packed all the wrong things, and couldn’t find a clean bathroom. Preparing for a film shoot is not too dissimilar from any other live event. But be...

Hello Stage 32 Community! I’m thrilled to introduce myself as the new Stage 32 Brand Ambassador for Poland! I’m a film producer, editor, and President of Women in Film & Television Poland, and I had the pleasure of connecting with the Stage 32 team this year at the Cannes Film Festival. My film journey began in Los Angeles, and over the years, I’ve produced internationally recognized projects that have screened at festivals from Cannes to Berlinale to Mumbai. I’m especially passionate about...

Happy Friday, Stage 32 Community! There’s a lot of mystery surrounding the word “development.” It’s one of those industry terms that gets tossed around constantly, but when you ask five different people what it means, you’ll probably get five different answers. That’s why this week, inspired by a recent conversation in the Writer’s Room Lounge, I want to pull back the curtain a bit. In honor of July Filmmakers Club, we’re getting real about what filmmaking actually looks like, the good, the...

Bending the rules of physics is acceptable in fiction, as long as writers apply the logic consistently. As audiences, we suspend our disbelief all the time, immersing ourselves in imagined worlds. But we can only go so far before the narrative becomes implausible. While creative license is often employed, staying close to realistic science can be a way to keep your audience grounded and engaged. Nothing kills a story for me faster than something so wildly unrealistic it yanks me right out of the...

Before we do anything else, let’s get the trite, buzz-wordy - and largely inaccurate - piece of non-advice out of the way first: “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” It’s pithy and sounds so wise. And you’ve heard it so often that it basically just folds into any conversation you ever have about how to build your network. It’s also one of those nothing phrases that people say without really digging into it deeper. The first major problem with it is that it’s not who you know, but i...

Happy Sunday, Creative Army! Have you had a creative weekend so far? Whether you’ve been writing, filming, editing, or simply dreaming up your next big idea, I’ve got some inspiring content to fuel your passion and keep you moving forward. So grab your coffee, and let’s dive in. This week’s featured video comes from FilmSpeak: Ryan Coogler’s SINNERS Just Changed Filmmaking Forever. Coogler’s Sinners is already being called a landmark achievement in cinema and a genre-defining horror mast...

If you have visited my profile, you have presumably noticed where I live. So I want to give you a very Swedish piece of advice. Here in Sweden, we are sometimes reminded of Swedes who are popular in Hollywood. You may know about Greta Garbo, Alexander Skarsgård, Ingrid Bergman, Dolph Lundgren, and Alicia Vikander. Or heard about other Swedes in Hollywood. So, how do you become popular? You may at first find it odd that we Swedes can be popular abroad. I have myself encountered the opinion "y...

A word to the wise. What I’m proposing in this article is based on my aspirations and intentions. Some may want to point out that I may fail. Sad to say, there are always people like that in this industry, and the best thing to do with them is to keep them at a distance. We don’t need their negative energy, so we shouldn’t allow them to undermine our confidence. As we know, there are no guarantees for what we are doing, but we have to face any opportunity with confidence and not doubt. Why wou...

June marks a natural transition—a season change, a shift in light, a nudge to check in. As creatives, we often move forward without pausing to consider how we are feeling. How are we functioning? Or we do not do it often enough. Now that we are halfway through the year, it is a good time to pay attention to what is actually sustaining us and take a reset. In my mind, the best place to start is with your health, not just in a physical sense, instead as a state of alignment across three dimensio...

AI in the publishing field is not merely an idea; it’s already a reality. New tools specifically designed for publishing are being introduced, and the first publishers are beginning to experiment with them. At the Turin International Book Fair, the largest book fair in Italy, I attended a product presentation for one of these tools. The host publisher shared that he was initially sceptical but was ultimately amazed by the results and wants to continue using it. But what does this mean for wri...