Inspirational

I honestly believe the path to success is driven simply by action. It doesn’t matter how amazing/terrible you might be at something, without action, you won't experience any growth and you won't progress towards your goals. Your dreams will never be realized and you’ll go through life always wondering what could’ve been. It’s not enough to want something in this life. Nobody is going to give you anything, you have to be willing to fight for it and you have to do so through action. Ideas are a...

Hi, Stage 32ers! This year marked a monumental milestone for Stage 32, our 10th year on La Croisette! In many ways, it was our most successful year yet. During our first-ever Stage 32 Cannes meetup, we had a close-knit group of 17 people in attendance. This year, we grew to 1500 attendees at our Stage 32 party in partnership with Variety! It was amazing to see so many people from our global community show up to celebrate, network, and support each other. We had Stage 32 members screening th...

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 one...

I was a Stage 32 "virgin" when it happened. Truth be told, I think it was my third time, my third 8-minute Pitch Session with a Stage 32 Exec. Being an "ugly red-headed stepchild" of the entertainment world, meaning even though I have a successful career as an Entertainment Marketing Creative, I had to find a way for executives to see me in a new light. A multi-award winning Creative Director, writing, producing, and directing trailers, etcetera needed executives to now take me seriously as a...

Happy Sunday, Creative Army! First, congratulations to all of you who have already participated in our monthly Introduce Yourself Weekend! Thousands of connections have been made between entertainment creatives and professionals from around the globe. Whether you are a long-time member or brand new to Stage 32, take a moment to pop over to the Introduce Yourself Lounge and say hello before the end of the weekend. First up, we're looking at A24. What makes the look of an A24 film? Can you rep...

Hello everyone! I know this must sound like a promotional blog, a congratulatory blog, or a persuasive blog! Actually, it is none of these! It is just an account of what Stage 32 has done for me at this moment in time. So, please give me a moment for some backstory... My name is Selma Karayalçın and I’m a fifty-year-old woman going on twenty-one who lives on the island of Aphrodite which is called Cyprus. If you don’t know where that is, it is a tiny dot on the map in the eastern Mediterra...

When Covid first came onto the scene I got the worst of it. It was March of 2020 and whatever heinous version of it I had caused me to be bedridden for three months. I couldn’t walk to the bathroom or the bedroom door without collapsing. And even after the symptoms began to subside, it would be another two months before I could walk to the kitchen. Yet, in the midst of that, something wonderful happened. Although my physical body had abandoned me, my mind had not. I was of sound mind, able to dr...

You’ve spent hundreds of hours pouring into your book or your script. You’re finally finished, and in the midst of your celebration, you realize now it’s time for edits and rewrites. The confetti is short-lived and now you have a decision to make: who are you going to choose for your editor? If your thoughts drift to one of your friends, family members, or even yourself—you may want to reconsider and make sure you have a professional in your corner. Having a fresh set of eyes from a storytelli...

In 2021, I wrote a pilot and a feature in my labors as a script doctor and ghostwriter… and in the final tally, I wound up writing 6 pilots and nine features by the end of that year. Only one of those films was under my own name. In 2022, my goal was to make enough headway with my own spec sales, films in development, and transmedia projects that I can charge more, work less, and focus on what I have to give the audience. I made it my focus to get my sci-fi heist feature into production, star...

I am the director and a producer for a proof of concept short called Innocent Love that we developed for a tv series that we called Forgotten Wisdom. It’s set in historic times but also very relatable to current-day problems. It is also meant to be educational in showing how problems were once dealt with. We were able to shoot during the summer of 2020 with the intention of pitching to a local streaming service in Slovenia and maybe even internationally. 1. How It All Started In early 2020...