Success Stories

Good morning Stage 32 Creative Crew! I hope you have had a productive week and hit your writing or creative goals! Can you believe that we are already over halfway through the year! Since we just closed out the first week of June, I wanted to take a look back at the busy month of May here at Stage 32. There were a couple of big success stories that jumped out in the month of May. Jonathan Jordan, the winner of Stage 32 3rd Annual Feature Screenwriting Contest, let us know that he not only sig...

The most respected genre screenwriting competition of the year is back! Never before has a genre screenwriting contest brought together judges from the five leading horror production companies in the business! Stage 32 is bringing in the biggest names in genre film production and distribution to judge horror and thriller projects! This is the first time these powerhouse companies, executives, and filmmakers have been assembled together for one screenwriting contest! Stage 32 is looking for...

I always just assumed that I would get an email one day asking about some old footage I had of Lin-Manuel Miranda busking in the streets of Scotland. I knew I had the footage on a drive (even some of the old tapes on my desk now) and at some point, there would be a biographer or documentarian who would realize that I am the person to ask about this old footage. Lin, after all, had become quite literally become one of the most famous people in the world and I had some pretty magical moments captu...

In these strange, uncertain, and truly and worrying times, as the writer, producer, and director of the independent feature film Killing Lionel I thought I’d take a moment to reflect on my journey as a film-maker and hopefully offer some insight and perhaps some advice. Before I proceed, I’d like to add that everything I write here is based on the experiences of the last six years of my life. Before this time period, I was an amateur filmmaker, with a handy-cam and a dream! As it is with a...

In 2018, that script I started six years earlier would be named as the Grand Prize Winner in Stage 32’s third annual feature screenwriting competition. A few weeks later and I’m in Los Angeles for the first time — well, not counting layovers at LAX, because who really wants to count those, am I right? Every day, I was in meetings with filmmakers behind movies like Ready or Not and Swiss Army Man. And to top off the week, Stage 32 had set me up with a meeting at Verve Talent & Literary Agenc...

In the Summer of 2005, I was a freelance Associate Producer working in New York, just getting my start in the business. In many ways it’s tempting to look back upon those days now and say that I didn’t know anything. We do that to our younger selves and the nostalgic stories we tell. But the truth is, although I had very little experience and very little understanding of how to actually create content, I knew what I liked. I knew what I thought was good storytelling, and I had a lot of confidenc...

Hello! My name is Jon Kohan and I’m a screenwriter from Johnstown, Pennsylvania. When you think of Pennsylvania you don’t really think Hollywood. In the history of my hometown, there have only been two major Hollywood movies filmed in the city; Slap Shot (1977) and All the Right Moves (1983). A lot of us have dreams that in order for us to see them to fruition, we must make a literal move. In the case of filmmaking, if you want to make movies you have to go where movies are made. The obvio...

I have been a member of Stage 32 for some time. I didn’t do anything at first. I read all the emails Stage 32 sent me and enjoyed reading the blogs and videos. And looking across at the slate of producers and agents Stage 32 had in partnership for project development. I was also busy finalizing a series of 25 individual stories with a common theme under the canopy of TRAVELERS TALES.  TRAVELERS TALES is a total of 25 feature film scripts all with a common theme. This is a journey against the o...

Good morning Stage 32 Creative Crew! Welcome back to another week of creativity and productivity! We’re kicking off the week with a big dose of motivation to get you fired up for the week. But before we dive into this week’s story, did you hear what producer Bradley Gallo of Amasia Entertainment predicted during last week’s Executive Hour exclusively in the Writers' Room? He said that he is reading and developing more than ever because there are rumblings in the industry that productions coul...

Good morning Stage 32 Creatives! Believe it or not, it’s time to kick off another week of creative endeavors. There is no better way to start than to highlight a member of our community who took the bull by the horns, financed and produced his own film and who just signed a shopping agreement with a producer after getting feedback on his pitch deck through a Stage 32 Mentoring Session! Stage 32 member, Antoine Allen is a screenwriter, director and producer. Antoine began his career in the mus...