Trending Lounge Discussions

Abhijeet Aade I really appreciate that — and I’m glad that came through.

That balance between idea and human experience is something I’m constantly trying to stay aware of. It’s easy to get lost in the concept, especially with themes like power, but without the emotional core, it doesn’t truly connect.

For me, the challenge is making sure the system never overshadows the people inside it — but instead reveals them.

Thanks again for the encouragement, and I’d love to follow your work as well.

Kristia Nakhoul Thank you, I really appreciate your interest — that means a lot.

I’m still in the development stage, focusing on refining the story and characters, but it’s great to know the project resonates with you in that way.

I’d be happy to stay connected and keep you in mind as things progress. Feel free to share any of your work as well — I’d love to see it.

Best,

Tomás

Tomás, this sounds like a compelling and timely concept, especially with that blend of political drama and sci-fi grounded in character. As you move into this next phase, we recommend leveraging Stage 32 pitch sessions and networking opportunities to connect directly with producers aligned with this space, and we’re always here to help guide you every step of the way!

Tucker Briggs Thank you for sharing this — I really like your approach, especially the focus on refining without losing the writer’s voice.

That “almost there” stage is exactly where I am with my current project, so I understand how important it is to have the right kind of feedback at that point.

I’m currently doing a lot of internal refinement, but I’d definitely be interested in learning more about your process and how you usually work with writers.

Let’s stay connected.

Laquan Copeland Thank you, I really appreciate the support and guidance.

That’s exactly the direction I’m aiming for — continuing to refine the project while building the right connections around it. I agree that finding producers who align with the tone and scope of the story is key.

I’ll definitely be exploring the pitch sessions as I move forward. In the meantime, I’m focused on making sure the project is as strong and clear as possible before presenting it.

Thanks again — looking forward to being more active here.

With the increased interest and production of micro dramas or vertical series I've taken a look at some of the work that I've created and decided which things could be adapted into a vertical series model. One specific project I developed seems to be the perfect screenplay to adapt into a micro drama format so I've taken some time to rework episodes into those three to four minute bursts and it's helped me punch up my project in a way that ultimately will benefit my other full length TV formatted projects.

I've learned that the journey is the reward. I have learned more about myself through writing than I have anyone else. Life is amazing and I am so grateful to be a writer and to learn from all of you! With every project I evolve more and more and become better.

It’s been an invaluable learning experience on Stage 32. I’ve recently learned that attention flows through stillness. When a moment isn’t overworked, presence alone can deepen the connection between the audience and the character.

I’ve been reading a screenplay from a Stage 32 member who is exceptional in the way that his writing creates a presence more than activity and it is an attractive style.

It reminds me of classic western movies that are grounded and create an intense curiosity and tension with stillness. You feel and understand more of what is going on with the character that creates more emotional depth and memorable scenes and memorable movies.

Stillness invites presence and that’s exactly what holds attention.

Work more in silence. This has allowed less distractions from opinions that can be great and very useful, but can throw off flow. Even fifteen plus years in it, I've realized more and more how helpful it is when it's necessary. The creative process can be complex most times, especially dealing with the imagination and the responsibility to present something authentic for others to relate to. And to sound very cliche... writing can be very challenging. But the endless self-journey can be rewarding, which requires a good bit of isolation from time to time.

Around mid 2025, I chose a half hour pitch session with an exec because she had worked with a major producer that I hoped she would surface the project to if she concurred. She didn't offer to move project to him but she had a question about a formatting choice I was making. In Final Draft, there is a formatting feature , "SHOT', I was using to shorten my action descriptions and share what I was seeing as I wrote a scene. Mind you never camera movement specific. The exec understood when I explained my use of the device but said she'd never seen it before. Her recommended substitute was to simply break the action description with a blank line which would indicate to the reader a change of focus. I took her advice, went back through all my scripts and edited them accordingly. Seems to have worked.

Damilola Jabita I really like the space you’re exploring here — that feeling of a story pushing back and revealing something deeper as you write it. My process is almost the opposite, but I think it comes from the same place of vulnerability.

Because of my background, I tend to backwards‑plan everything. I don’t usually start unless I already know the concept, the emotional spine, and the direction I’m heading. The details shift, sure, but the core is pretty locked in before I ever type page one.

And for me, the vulnerability isn’t in discovering something new mid‑draft — it’s in deciding which part of myself I’m willing to put on the page. I joke that I don’t write about things that would send me to therapy; I write about the things I’m already in therapy for. That’s the string I tug on.

So even though our processes are different, I connect with what you’re saying about the fear. Writing the thing that feels closest to the bone — whether you discover it or plan it — is always the thing worth finishing.

Honestly this is every script I write lol, try as I might to hold back when I know someone will read my words... my subconscious says "screw that" and I end up spilling some dark secrets.

It's why admittedly I am absolutely terrified of Lunar Window in particular getting sold. I didn't mean to put so much of myself into it, including my own personal experience of what I called "nunhood;" the desire to purify and abstain in the name of something higher, when in reality it was glorified punishment. And now I'm about to do the same with Niveous Reverie, where I attempt to concentrate a lifetime of impossible, maddening love for someone into something readable (and dare I say, one day, observable).

Therapists have nothing on me lol

Damilola Jabita, I think so too. The stories that feel uncomfortable to write usually come from a more honest place, and that’s what tends to stay with people.

Hey @Sonny thanks for sharing about your books. I'm currently reading Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell, the first in his acclaimed Wallander series, so these sound up my alley. Which one of your four would you recommend checking out first?

Thanks, Pat. Since there are only four in the series I'd recommend starting with the first one, 'The Murder Game'. If I had 30-50+ books in the series (like one author I follow, JD Robb, who has 60+ in the series I read!) I might give a different answer, but since it's only four I think it's worth starting at the beginning. Book #2 in the series is 'Glitz. Glamour. Murder.', #3 is 'Blood & Vengeance', and #4 is 'Divine Deception'. I hope you enjoy!

Welcome Sonny, thank you for sharing your work here and wishing you all the best.

Thanks, Ed. I'm excited to be part of Stage 32.

You're not alone. That ladder is real, and the worst part is the goal post keeps moving. You hit one milestone, then the goalpost shifts to the next thing you don't have yet. It's exhausting. For those who've climbed higher, did the top rung feel different, or is it just another place to keep climbing from?

Schuman Hoque Filmmaking is an entrepreneurial business, and each film is it's own business in fact. With 35 years in the industry, I will be honest for the sake of every aspiring professional here. There are two sets of filmmakers. The largest group by orders of magnitude is composed of people who run after "industry" validation and studio money. This is the amateur group and by definition they do not and will not be paid. A couple of them may eventually sell a script. But they pay for entry, for coverage, for contests, etc. and 99%+ of them will stay in that space. The second group are professionals, and usually from the beginning of their entry into the space. They understand that film is a business of entrepreneurs. The only validation they are looking for is revenues from the film they make. They don't care about awards, they hope an audience will like their work but really don't care so long as they pay for it. They especially don't care about validation from other filmmakers of any level, or from "producers" who themselves are actually employees of studios and who couldn't produce a successful short without their bosses telling them yes, no, maybe so and giving them the money to do it. "But self financed so it doesn't count..." That's an absolute joke. All studio films are "self financed" and self distributed by definition. I am frankly stunned by the implication that you accepted that BS as a criticism rather than as recognition of the fact that you did something half the studios in town cannot do by themselves. Every person who told you that is an idiot, and a jealous one at that. "Self financed and distributed" means YOU are the industry and therefore what you say goes, and words to the contrary are just plain stupid. As for directing (this being the directing lounge), the advice from Cameron, Schumacher, Tarantino et al is all identical: "Get a camera, shoot a scene, now you are a director. Now it's just negotiating your fee." As for producing, get a project, make it somehow, within the resources you can pull together, and get it to a paying market. Now you are a producer. Yes, it's that simple. But that simple mechanic cannot be done by people who don't or won't understand that seeking validation is a game for wannabes. Truth: Studios and other producers are your competitors, not your friends." They may be collegial or they may possibly be project partners with other professional producers but they ARE your competitors. Why seek validation from such parties? It's an industry pathology. That idea seems a quantum leap in mindset for most people, but it's a required one if you are going to make it professionally. It's a difficult industry but, as I said, its for entrepreneurs. As Nike says: just do it.

Schuman, this is such a real and honest perspective—so many creatives experience that shifting “ladder,” and you’re definitely not alone in it. The key is continuing to leverage momentum from those strong pitch scores and requests into targeted follow-ups and relationships, and we’re always here to help guide and support you as you navigate those next steps!

Sandra Isabel Yes. So true. And who gets the recognition no matter how little they contributed to the end result? The director. And you can thank the French Nouvelle Vague (New Wave) with their auteur "theory" for that. So... In my view, writers are, in particular, and most especially, the first directors.

Andrew Sarris, in his Introduction to INTERVIEWS WITH FILM DIRECTORS, Avon Books, 1967, p. 12, wrote:

“...screenwriting involves more than mere dialogue and plot. The choice between a close-up and a long-shot, for example, may quite often transcend the plot. If the story of LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD is told with the Wolf in close-up and Little Red Riding Hood in long-shot, the director is concerned primarily with the emotional problems of a wolf with a compulsion to eat little girls. If Little Red Riding Hood is in close-up and the wolf in long–shot, the emphasis is shifted to the emotional problems of vestigial virginity in a wicked world. Thus, two different stories are being told with the same basic anecdotal material. What is at stake in the two different versions of LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD are two contrasting directorial attitudes toward life. One director identifies more with the Wolf—the male, the compulsive, the corrupted, even evil itself. The second director identifies with the little girl - the innocence, the illusion, the ideal and hope of the race.”

Okay, wait a minute. Did he say “two contrasting directorial attitudes toward life”? So, if you make a film it isn’t about the story in the film, it’s actually your take on LIFE? This may have more to do with Sarris’s personal predilections than any interpretations of the story. After all, there is an interpretation in between his two examples that has to do with a hungry and wily predator trying to hunt and eat defenseless prey as is its nature. This, rather than some kind of twisted and corrupt expression of pure, yet sexually perverse evil, or contrarily, some innocent expression of racial hope. You know he is over-thinking this when he employs P.C. buzz terms like “sexually perverse” and “racial hope.” It’s all too politically self-conscious, pandering as it does, to his “choir” full of cineastes, for my taste. Perhaps Sarris has been reading too much Freud. Perhaps it’s the ‘60’s. And perhaps, as are we all,

He gets it, but he doesn't stop there. Where a film's story is a reflection of a particular view, the writer's came first. So, in exalting the director while ignoring the writer, "auteurists" fall into the cineaste's version of the cult of personality. Sarris is a product of his times. The trick is to recognize it and transcend them.

But the reality is that before there can be a close-up or a long-shot, there must be a subject to be shot. And the assumption that the narrative left an interpretation of the subject to some neutral medium-shot until a director could come along and take a position one way or another is actually ignorance of an emphasis that is almost always already present in the narrative, placed there by the writer, and ignored by the director in favor of wresting control of the narrative for his own reasons.

For example, one can describe an action in several ways: as pure and focused (close-up), as within its immediate location (medium-shot), or as within and against its surroundings or environment (long-shot). It can even be described in such a way as to evoke a mind’s-eye view suggesting an up-angle to yield a powerful or dominating subject, a straight-on angle to yield a power-neutral subject, or a downward angle, suggesting a subordinate and helpless subject. The lighting influencing that mind’s-eye view can be (and often is) adjusted in the writing. When a writer describes characters and action in any of these ways, the writer is influencing the reader’s interpretation of the story in service to a vision that precedes the coming collaboration. This is to specify that vision toward production of a film that serves it. The fact that the director comes along and changes it doesn’t necessarily indicate a superior vision, it merely indicates, a superior control of the result.

Sarris, again, p. 14:

“It is fashionable to say that the screen is a director’s medium and the stage is a writer’s medium, but it is difficult to say that a Broadway-to-Hollywood-and-back director like Elia Kazan is any less in command in one medium than in another.”

Why is it difficult? It’s because every production, stage and film, both, is a unique case when it comes to collaboration involving who did what, and how much. Sorting out film credit is worse than herding cats. It’s closer to herding herds of cats after particularly difficult negotiations with each of the various and sundry Cat Guilds. Better to accept the collaboration for its own strengths and dispense with what amounts to aesthetic idolatry at the expense of facts. Produced narrative works don’t demand some kind of religious “leap of faith” to enable one’s deepest appreciation.

The stage is a writer’s medium because plays are re-produced, and survive any given director. Therefore, the writer’s vision is the only constant. Meanwhile, films are rarely re-produced, so the director’s version is generally the sole version. Add to that the writer exits the thing, willingly or not, early. The implication, then, is that the writer will lose control of his/her vision because, he/she is not the “last man standing.” The director is.

Director Arthur Penn has gone on record in THE DIRECTOR’S EVENT, by Eric Sherman & Martin Rubin, Atheneum, 1970, p. 120 – 1, taking an unabashed writer-be-damned view:

“In the theater, the script is embalmed. It is The Text, a revered work. A man’s written it, and it’s meant to be delivered as such. In the cinema, the dialogue is only a guide. My writer friends are often offended by the literary level of the scripts of my films. On the other hand, I keep thinking it doesn’t matter a great deal, and I’m sort of offended sometimes by the look of their plays.

“An awful lot of vanity is inherent in the movie-making event. It’s a seductive event. Seldom in one’s fantasies can one achieve the kind of power that you have on a movie set. Power corrupts; movie power corrupts absolutely. Dialogue in the cinema only serves as a guide to a kind of visualization, and if this be megalomania, so be it. There is only one event in making movies, and that’s the director’s event. It’s not anybody else’s. I don’t care how well written the script is. You can get into a motel room in Texas, and the dialogue can be exquisite, but what you choose to look at and how you look at it is everything.”

Now, don’t get me wrong, I like a number of Penn’s films. His “writer friends” must be novelists or those exalted playwrights, because they surely aren’t screenwriters. Penn, though, has become “hoist by his own petard.” He admits to the corrupting influence of the role of the director, and then exercises that corruption when he says, “...what you choose to look at and how you look at it is everything.” The key word there, however, is “what.” Without the script, there is no “what.”

This ain’t a small thing, folks.

And by its presence, script having been read, that “what” has been “viewed,” so a view-point is established: the writer’s viewpoint.

The maximum that the director can bring to the film is an interpretation of what was already there or a forced re-write to that director’s specification. In his “corruption,” and because of his theater-based notion of screenwriting as merely dialogue, and “suggested” dialogue, at that, he believes direction is ‘The Text.’

Perhaps this is all really sour grapes, and, like his single screenwriting experience trying to make a two-hour movie from a twenty minute song (ALICE’S RESTAURANT) it’s based on his experience directing those playwrights’ untouchable words for the stage. With his elevation of the “what” and “how” one chooses to “look” with the camera, he implies that all screenwriting only exhibits a neutral point-of-view; that, other than scene transitions, it implies no cutting; that screenwriting is actually mis-named and really amounts to just suggestive dialogue-writing, the action ignored; and that dialogue doesn’t compare to camera placement, the use of which is “everything.”

Let him shoot that motel room in Texas with no script: with just the improvising actors, without those characters saying those written lines; and without that story (in fact, without that motel room or even Texas!). He’d find himself without that audience. I wonder how different it would be from the Penn family’s home movies. “Slick sh*t,” to borrow a phrase. And...

WritERS aren't the most important thing in filmmaking, writING is.

For me, the main concerns are the structure and the writing. That is exactly why I booked the 30-minute session: I want to know how I can strengthen the script and make it market-ready.

This is one of the most underrated truths in this business. The writer decides what is possible before anyone else shows up. Every choice about the world and the setting and the rules of the story are production decisions disguised as creative ones. When you write a scene that needs a specific location or a system that behaves a certain way you just committed someone else's budget and schedule without them being in the room. That gap between creative freedom and downstream reality is what makes the writing phase so consequential. The writers who feel that tension and work inside it instead of ignoring it are the ones producers actually trust.

As a writer, I have realized that I cannot do it alone!

There are four elements or groups of people involved: The story, written by the writer (this is the person who ignites the fire); the actors who give life to the characters; the director who brings magic and essential elements to the story; and finally, the editing team that puts all the pieces together.

Therefore, as a writer, my main issue is bringing everyone who shares the same vision together.

I love this post Sandra Isabel. I think I'm going to print it out and attach it to every contract I sign from here on out. My biggest challenge right now? Time. I'm grateful for the source of income that provides for my family. I just wish I could focus on what I love and provide at the same time.

Achmad, this is a smart approach, thinking about character design with merchandising in mind early on can really strengthen the long-term franchise potential. As you continue developing, Stage 32’s pitch sessions and industry connections can help position both the series and its commercial viability, and we’re always here to support you!

Thank you so much, Laquan! I really appreciate your support. I believe that a great story should always have a strong foundation for a franchise. Excited to keep developing this further!

That's sad news because you should have never sent money and never send your material without notifying the Stage 32 staff first. Try to make sure your material is registered.

It has both copyright and WGA registrations.

Working on a script.

Whoop! Whoop! I have a script that matches an OWA! Submitted! Thanks for these updates, Sam Rivera!

Exciting new opportunities!

Lol technically mine fits two of these so here goes nothing~

I've got a powerful drama, alright!!

Hey Phil Parker few recs for an action-adventure feature:

Sean Aversa, Creative Executive, Zero Gravity Management: https://www.stage32.com/happy-writers/pitch-sessions/Pitch-Sean-Aversa-Saturday-May-16th-2026

David Harris, Producer, Harris Films: https://www.stage32.com/happy-writers/pitch-sessions/Pitch-David-Harris-...

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Joshua Bennett Hi there, it’s great to connect with you.

Your project idea sounds really interesting especially the mix of comedy and drama around a family relocating and the setup leading into the move. That kind of structure really relies on strong pacing and consistent character voice to keep both the emotional and comedic beats landing properly.

I also like the way you’re building curiosity around the “why only two seasons” angle it already feels like something that depends heavily on tight narrative planning and intentional structure rather than filler storytelling.

I do beta reading and copy editing, and projects like yours are exactly the kind I enjoy working on. On the beta reading side, I focus on story clarity, pacing, character consistency, and whether the emotional beats are actually landing the way the writer intends. On the copy editing side, I refine dialogue flow, tone consistency, and readability so the script feels natural and production-ready.

If you’re open to it, I’d love to collaborate and take a look at your pitch or early material. I can give you feedback both from a story-development perspective and a line-level editing perspective so the script feels strong on both structure and execution.

Would love to hear those Joshua Bennett! Have a great week!

Hello Joshua Bennett

I am Ezekiel, I am a professional animator and a storyboard artist, I would love to connect