Hey, Creative Army!

I'm thrilled to announce today that for the 8th straight year, Stage 32 and the American Film Market have partnered to bring new opportunities and access to attendees of America's largest film market!

This 2023 American Film Market takes place from October 31st to November 5th in Santa Monica, CA.

Stage 32 is proud to continue as the official Networking and Education partner of AFM 2023. The American Film Market (AFM) is where the business of film comes to life every November and where the next great films will be on display and discovered by the world’s buyers. As a filmmaker, producer, and/or screenwriter, the Market can be career-changing if you are well-prepared and create a strategic roadmap utilizing all the tools and resources the AFM provides.

Get a Free Stage 32 Webinar with your AFM Badge

Back by popular demand, as the official networking and education partner of AFM for the 8th year, all attendees who sign up for the conference will receive a FREE Stage 32 Next Level Webinar to further assist their craft and/or industry pursuits.

As part of the 2023 AFM program, the powers that be have brought a groundbreaking panel to the AFM Sessions, one that Stage 32 is proud to have put together, which is talking about television at the film market for the first time! Recently, as you may be aware, I sold my original Television series to a studio and I am looking forward to joining our panel discussing, Developing, Pitching and Making Television. Below is more information on the panel. I hope to see you there!

Panel: Developing, Pitching and Making Television

Television has a tremendous amount of variables given the multiple-episode and multi-season format. When developing a television project, how long should your script be? What additional material do you need in order to pitch your project? What should go into your TV pitch bible? What should you have prepared if you're on a Zoom pitch? And, once your show gets greenlit, what is the process like working with the buyer? We'll bring in a variety of experts to talk about the entire process and what it's like from the creative and buyer perspective.

Date: Friday, November 3, 2023

Time: 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm PT

Location: Le Méridien Delfina, 530 Pico Blvd, Santa Monica, CA 90405

Moderator:

• Nathan Varni, Executive Director of Current Programming ABC/Disney

Panelists:

• Leila Cohan, Emmy Award-nominated writer & producer (Bridgerton)
• Richard Botto, CEO, Stage 32, writer & producer
• Vijal Patel, Emmy Award-nominated writer & producer (Black-ish)
• Kate Gill, Senior Vice President of Development for Paramount TV Studios (seven-time Emmy nominated Station Eleven (Max) as well as Made for Love (Max) and Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies (Paramount+).

Learn More About The Moderator & Panelists!

Nathan Varni, Executive Director, Current Programming, ABC Entertainment Group/Disney

Mr. Varni oversees all creative and day-to-day management on ABC’s primetime series including Will Trent*,* Grey’s Anatomy*,* Station 19*,* The Conners and General Hospital*.* In past seasons, Mr. Varni served as the covering executive on Alaska Daily*,* The Company You Keep*,* Rebel*,* The Baker and the Beauty*,* How to Get Away with Murder*,* Grand Hotel*,* Once Upon A Time*,* Scandal*,* Cristela*,* The Middle*,* Kevin (Probably) Saves the World*,* the revival of Roseanne and also serves as the network/studio executive on ABC’s long-running daytime drama series, General Hospital*, currently celebrating 60 years on-air, where he has oversaw 3000+ episodes of the series, including multiple Daytime Emmy Awards for outstanding daytime drama series. Mr. Varni joined ABC in comedy current programming working in development and current programming and worked on a vast number of both comedy and drama series including According to Jim,* Samantha Who?**, Better off Ted*,* Cougar Town*,* Castle*,* V*,* 666 Park Avenue and three seasons co-covering Happy Endings*.*

Prior to joining ABC, Mr. Varni worked in series development at Regency Television (Malcolm in the Middle*,* The Bernie Mac Show). While at Regency Mr. Varni assisted with the creative coverage of NBC’s Windfall and FOX’s New Amsterdam*.* Prior to his time at Regency TV, Mr. Varni worked in reality series as a story assistant for series such as America’s Next Top Model*,* The Bachelor*,* The Bachelorette*,* High School Reunion*,* For Love or Money and The Next Great Champ*.* Game show experience includes working on 65 episodes of GSN’s Whammy*!* The All New Press Your Luck*.* Mr. Varni served as a production assistant and then Executive Producer’s assistant on the CBS sitcoms Listen Up and How I Met Your Mother*.*

Leila Cohan, Emmy-Nominated Writer and Producer

Leila Cohan is an Emmy-nominated television and feature writer. Most recently, she served as Co-Executive Producer on the forthcoming Netflix thriller THE PERFECT COUPLE. Previously, she’s written for SPECIAL (WB/Netflix) BRIDGERTON (Shondaland/Netflix), THE FIRST WIVES CLUB (Paramount/BET Plus), SANTA CLARITA DIET (Netflix), TELENOVELA (NBC), and AWKWARD (MTV). She’s developed pilots for Paramount, Hello Sunshine, The CW, YouTube Red, and the last days of ABC Family, as well features for Paramount, Picture Start and Lionsgate.

Richard “RB” Botto, CEO of Stage 32, Screenwriter & Producer

Richard “RB” Botto is the Founder and CEO of Stage 32, a working screenwriter, best-selling author, actor and producer. As the CEO of Stage 32, RB oversees the world’s largest online tech platform connecting and educating the global entertainment industry with over 1 million members in the community. Stage 32 is the education partner of Netflix, the American Film Market, Canon, and the Cannes Film Festival Marche du Film.

As a screenwriter, RB has sold feature screenplays and recently set up an original television series he created at Amblin. As a producer, his films have played at dozens of festivals including Cannes, Sundance, SXSW, and Raindance. As an actor, his latest film On the Corner of Ego and Desire recently premiered at the Raindance Film Festival. RB’s book Crowdsourcing For Filmmakers: Indie Film and the Power of the Crowd, was published by Focal Press/Routledge under the American Film Market Presents banner and has hit #1 in 6 different film and business-related categories and has over 100 5-star reviews.

RB has been a keynote speaker and panelist all over the world including Cannes Film Festival (France), American Film Market, Tribeca Film Festival, SXSW, Austin Film Festival (US), FOCUS, Raindance Film Festival (UK), FilmTT (Trinidad and Tobago), Hamburg Film Fest (Germany), Fest Festival (Portugal), Black Nights Film Festival (Estonia) and USC, Columbia and Harvard (US).

Vijal Patel, Emmy-Nominated and Peabody-Winning Writer/Executive Producer

Vijal Patel is an Emmy-nominated and Peabody-winning Writer/Executive Producer known for telling critically acclaimed stories about identity, race, and family. He has worked on long-running hit series like Black-ish and The Middle, and has developed features for Dreamworks and Netflix including an animated Bollywood musical. He is currently showrunning his own comedy series, The Pradeeps of Pittsburgh, for Amazon/Freevee which explores the modern struggles of Indian immigrants.

Kate Gill, SVP of Development for Paramount Television Studios

Kate Gill is SVP of Development for Paramount Television Studios, where she oversaw the Paramount+ musical series Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies and shepherded the critically acclaimed limited series Station Eleven and half-hour comedy Made For Love*,* both for HBOMax. Previously, she worked at YouTube Originals as the Development and Current executive for multiple series and pilots including the series Weird City and On Becoming A God In Central Florida*.* Before she worked for the streaming service, Gill worked with the late executive producer Jamie Tarses at her Sony-based POD FanFare and for the comedy company JASH heading up TV development. Gill graduated from Loyola Marymount University where she studied film production. She is a native of Carlsbad, California, and lives in Los Angeles.

Stage 32 + AFM Pitch Conference

Stage 32 also has the honor of partnering with AFM on their Pitch Conference!

A good pitch can get a bad film made while a bad pitch can leave an outstanding project languishing on the shelf. Attendees will learn the essential rules and tools of pitching from the experts. AFM participants can submit a pitch video for the opportunity to take the stage and pitch to our expert panel, who will give unvarnished feedback – explaining what worked, what didn’t – and why. Stage 32 will be giving the winner and a runner-up a development package with a Stage 32 mentor after the conference!

Presenter:

• Amanda Toney, Managing Director, Stage 32

Moderator:

• Lee Jessup, Screenwriting & Career Consultant

Panelists:

• Cassian Elwes, Producer & Agent, Elevated Film Sales
• Lorelle Lynch, Manager, Development & Production, AGC Studios

I look forward to seeing you at the market and conference!

Cheers!

RB

Let's hear your thoughts in the comments below!

Got an idea for a post? Or have you collaborated with Stage 32 members to create a project? We'd love to hear about it. Email Emily at blog@stage32.com and let's get your post published!

Please help support your fellow Stage 32ers by sharing this on social. Check out the social media buttons at the top to share on Instagram @stage32 , Twitter @stage32 , Facebook @stage32 , and LinkedIn @stage-32 .