Cinematography

How does a person succeed in Hollywood? Many of us, if not most of us, are on this site because we’re looking for some generally agreed upon, at least somewhat proven strategy for navigating our bewildering, often dehumanizing career path. Doing theater back in high school and college, breaking in was a pretty reliable, pretty straightforward process with a single, very frustrating twist thrown in: Trying to get involved in the productions upper-classmen are working on seems like an obvious pa...

Happy Sunday Creative Army! I hope you are having a great Labor Day Weekend so far. This fine Sunday morning, I invite you to take in some film content while you sip your daily dark roast. Let's dive in, shall we? First up, Kurt Yue of Acting Career Center recently interview 10 actors about what "survival job" side-hustles keep them working between acting gigs. Kurt does a great job providing examples of folks working part-time, full-time, independently, or for a company. He goes one step fu...

Happy Three Day Weekend Stage 32! As many of you may know, I host an Instagram LIVE every week on @stage32online highlighting some amazing Stage 32 members from all over the world. This week, I had the supreme pleasure of chatting with Australia-based actor, producer, and screenwriter Annisa Belonogoff. Annisa recently wrote an article for the Stage 32 community called "Producer/Director/Writer/Actor - You Can Do it All... But Should You? At one point or another, you are going to be the bear...

You’ve heard the saying “Jack of all trades, master of none”? I’m going to start with something controversial, I hate that quote. This quote has been preached to me on many occasions throughout my career and I can imagine it will continue for the rest of my years. Why this quote? Because my creativity is hard to grasp, I do many things, and can do many things well, does this sound like you?. Your creativity doesn’t fit in the societal norms of occupation, the idea that we decide to be or do o...

Back in 2006, a buddy of mine had an idea. He loved horror movies, he knew someone with a camera, and he had been writing horror-themed stories since he was a teenager. He’d also been acting in theater productions around the region, and figured he could get a few people together for a weekend here and there. And that’s exactly what he did. He turned one of his stories into a script. He pulled a few folks together. He started filming. Many people do this sort of home-grown filming now, but a...

Happy Sunday Creative Army! Have you had a creative weekend so far? I have some content here for you that is sure to get the creative juices flowing, so grab your coffee and let's dive in. First up, Apurture shares how to nail cinematic film lighting in your next project. They talking using key lights, shadows, camera placement, color contrast, and fill lights to make your subject beautifully cinematic. You will see examples from commercials and films like Atomic Blonde, The Social Network,...

Black Creek originated as a writing exercise during quarantine. Now, it’s an independent TV pilot with network actors, Sundance Fellows, and a cutting-edge health and safety solutions company attached. Michael Goitanich and Connor Pannell, the Canadian/American co-production duo behind Black Creek, discuss what they learned throughout production, virtual post-production, and their plans for distribution. This article focuses on what we learned during production, to learn how we handled pre-pro...

Hey, Stage 32-ers! It's been said that this business is a marathon, not a sprint. Nothing quite highlights the need to reserve your energy like a pandemic, but sometimes keeping occupied during downtime is the best way is to step back and absorb. You may not know this, but I first signed up for Stage 32's Writer's Room about a year ago because they hosted weekly webinars every Wednesday at 4pm PST. Jason Mirch has fostered a fantastic group of dedicated writers with these webinars, and we just...

The world is changing quickly and the phrase “new normal” is being bandied about with abandon. Even though filming is limited (at best), development continues to move forward and that means producers are busier than ever. In the entertainment industry, scripts continue to be optioned, projects continue to get developed, talent continues to find representation, and production is slowly starting to resume in LA and more so all over the world. So what does producing look like in this "new normal"?...

Happy Sunday Creative Army! Here's hoping you had a happy, healthy, and creative week. I've got my coffee in hand and some epic content to share with you today. Let's get inspired, shall we? First up, the folks over at Aputure have curated an excellent video with 7 Tips for Telling Story with Lighting. Filmmaking is an incredibly collaborative medium. No matter what discipline you work in, every job on a production is, in one way or another, there to serve the story. This video highlights th...