My first experience in the entertainment industry was as an actor and that experience has served me well when I got seriously into writing the last 3+ years. The major catalyst for my passion in writing came about when I started collaborating with my friend Stephani Prescott who is writing a fictional novel based on her dating relationships.

We are both from Boston but a few years back Stephani “went for it” and moved to LA where she made some amazing connections in a short period of time. This created a lot of momentum behind the project. She had some meetings with Netflix who was very interested in turning it into a TV series, but I think what ultimately made them pass is it wasn’t enough to carry a series and they also wanted the male perspective. That’s where I came in.

Originally, I started writing in novel form as we were going to publish the book together, but I quickly realized this concept was best suited for a screenplay. It started beforehand, but the silver lining of the pandemic was it allowed me to dive deep into writing; every single day I was either reading about the craft, researching ideas, and/or writing. I wanted to make sure at the end of every day that I was moving the ball forward in some way and I loved everything about the process!

I knew that I had good instincts and some natural ability since what I was writing was often in sync with the articles and books I continued to read, but there was still a lot I needed to learn about story structure and other aspects of the craft.

I knew we had a great foundation with Stephani’s book, and she also had an amazing immigration story that I was adapting to a screenplay. I wanted to incorporate that story into our series as well. But it still lacked a creative conceptual hook and the right vision to tie everything into a cohesive story and that took a lot of work…a lot. Since Stephani is a true believer and makes a lot of dating astrology references in her book, I wanted to make this a major theme of the series and that’s how “Dating Leos” was born.

But as time passed, and life got in the way as it often does, Stephani was losing some of her LA connections and we were losing momentum on the project as a whole.

My first exposure to Stage 32 was through social media marketing on Instagram. I listened to a few videos by RB, and I really loved what I heard. Stage 32 was a vehicle to connect creatives to the executives that can help develop and bring projects to the ultimate decision makers. This is exactly what we needed!

I heard a great phrase recently about “collapsing time,” and that is what Stage 32 has done for us. Yes, it is an investment but between all of the great webinars and opportunities to develop our script with executives, this saved us many years (and money in the long run) to get to this point.

From the very beginning of my first consultation call with Cindy Villareal I could see she was genuinely excited about the script and the series concept. We kept in touch but like most showrunners/executive producers like Cindy, she is extremely busy. I was respectful of this, and I continued to develop the script in the meantime. I first connected with Cindy right before Thanksgiving and before we knew it, we were approaching the holiday season and then the chaos to begin the new year. But I was persistent with my every few weeks follow up, which Cindy would later commend me for!

When I did get back in touch with Cindy, I let her know how much progress we had made with the script and the concept, and we started collaborating on getting the pitch deck and look book top notch. We then entered into a formal development agreement, and it has been an absolute dream working with her. Stephani and myself have been able to forge a strong personal relationship with Cindy over these last few months.

I didn’t realize how much up-front work is necessary to package things up, gone are the days when a pilot script and pitch deck were enough. This step is essential because when you do ultimately pitch the series to the studios, it has to be “ready to go”. Cindy was very appreciative of the effort Stephani and me were putting in. This is not the time for creators to kick their feet up and let the executive do everything, it is very much a collective effort.

Stage 32 has been a tremendous resource and every executive and manager I have had a consultation with I’ve taken at least one idea from them that made the script better. I could tell we were on the right track because each script coverage was getting more and more positive each time.

The best advice we can give is to try not to focus so much on whether or not an executive passes on your script but more on the feedback that they give you. All feedback is a gift, and even though you may be collectively rolling your eyes at that cliché it is so true! Trust the process.

While Cindy was the most important, every executive I’ve met through Stage 32 had a role in our success and getting us to this point. Keep casting that line because it only takes one executive who sees the full potential of your work. Now that we’ve officially signed a shopping agreement, it is going to be very exciting to see where the series goes from here!

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