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Amanda Toney Interesting read. Independent filmmakers today seem to be exploring more creative financing models beyond traditional studio funding. From crowdfunding and private investors to new fintech platforms and partnerships, the landscape is definitely evolving. It’s encouraging to see how innovation in financing is helping smaller projects get made while still maintaining creative independence.

Amanda Toney Absolutely. Innovate or die. The one constant is change.

Great article. It’s encouraging to hear that independent filmmakers are adapting in these uncertain times and evolving for the next chapter of entertainment. Independent financing is just the start. I think we are going to start seeing similar behavior in independent distribution, marketing, production, and other realms. As the article mentioned, international collaboration, private investment, and utilizing social media and streaming platforms are all key tools that will prove to be essential for independent filmmakers throughout this transitional period in Hollywood.

João Pimentel Thank you João

I really like your example of “Atomic Refuge.” That kind of perspective shift is exactly the type of structural tension I’m exploring: keeping the audience aligned with the apparent prey while slowly revealing agency.

Appreciate the inspiration and your insight on managing that shift effectively.

Yaman Najm, I'm glad you liked my idea.

If done right, this is a great trope to play with and lends itself to natural tension and a great payoff. As a reader or producer, I’d want to see micro-leaks in their persona—tiny, almost indiscernible moments where the ‘victim’ is a little too calm or a little too prepared for the chaos. The key to making me want to read the script immediately is the "why." If the predator's motive is rooted in a twisted sense of justice or a past trauma the audience already empathizes with, the reveal becomes impactful and strong rather than just a gimmick. I’m looking for that specific moment where the audience realizes they’ve been rooting for the villain the entire time.

Producer here - making the character vulnerable and finding an agenda to root for will emotionally twist us when we find out we were connected to the wrong character!

Yaman Najm Was thinking about another film that might be even closer to what you're envisioning. EX MACHINA. Something Lisa Zambri just mentioned which is so key. Vulnerability. The whole time you're watching that film you believe she's becoming sentient. Then it gut punches you when you realize she was using everyone for what it wanted.

Hey Spencer Robinson great post - how important is social media in getting staffed on one of these network late night shows? do you have to have pages flooded with bits and sketches or stand up clips to stand out? also how much do network shows like these look at follower counts for writers they're looking to hire?

Pat Alexander From my experience, not important at all.

Spencer Robinson Thanks for the pulling back the curtain. Interesting.

This is really valuable—especially the idea of preparing before the opportunity shows up. What stands out to me is how different this skill set is from long-form storytelling—being sharp, concise, and consistently creative under pressure. Definitely something I’m starting to pay more attention to as I develop as a writer.

I never start with the ending, because during the long journey of writing many unexpected things happens - so possible finales evolve along the way.

Having developed hundreds of scripts and writing my own, I'll advise - if you do not know the ending, you don't know the beginning. But sometimes in order to find the ending, you need to write to discover it. You will come up with a process with practice but if youre going to write to find the ending, you have to be willing to throw away a draft.

To parrot Lisa Zambri this is very true. Which is why it's great to outline before writing. You have to have some sense of how the characters are going to evolve and change over the course of the story to craft something compelling and fleshed. That usually, if not always includes the ending. Ask yourself for every character - what is their Point A? what is their Point B? How are you going to take them from Point A to Point B over the course of your story? Discover comes along the way sure, and that's part of the journey, but think of writing like using a map to travel from here to there. You have to have the map to start - and know where are you coming from, then where are you going to - for your trip to make any lick of sense.

Appreciate all of this—seriously valuable insights.

I think what I’m starting to understand is that it’s not really one or the other. Having a sense of the ending gives direction, but staying open during the process allows the story to evolve in ways you didn’t expect.

For me, I’ve been focusing on character arcs first—where they start and where they could end emotionally—then letting the plot build around that. That way I’m not locked in, but I’m also not lost.

Still refining my process, but conversations like this definitely help sharpen it.

Hi!

Personally, my project started forming in my head about four years ago. I probably restarted it around twenty-seven times, and got stuck just as many times. At some point I stopped, because even as a beginner writer I knew how difficult it is to break into the film industry… so for years I didn’t work on it at all.

But last February, something I read in the news made me pick it up again. From that moment on, there were no more doubts. As I wrote, the story just kept flowing. Nothing could stop me anymore, and within just two months I had written the foundation of an entire trilogy.

To be honest, I barely slept, ate, or drank — it completely pulled me in.

So in my opinion, the answer will eventually come to you along the way while you’re writing.

Hey Huneyn, welcome!

Honestly, the ideas themselves are less important than the perspective you bring to them. AI-human love, religion, even psychological killers—these have all been explored before, but what makes them feel fresh is the emotional core and how personally you approach them.

For example, an AI love story isn’t really about “AI” anymore it’s about connection, loneliness, identity, and what it means to be human. If your version is rooted in grief and guilt, that already gives it a stronger, more unique angle.

Same with religion and love—people don’t necessarily look for answers, they connect more with characters who are struggling with those questions in an honest way.

If anything, I’d say don’t worry about whether the idea is “overdone.” Focus on:

– what your story is really about beneath the concept

– what emotional experience you want the audience to feel

That’s what makes it stand out.

Curious—which one of your projects feels the most personal to you right now?

Abhijeet Aade Hey, thanks for commenting! I think the angel story? It's the most personal one to me. But, I don't know, people say I talk about things through my works. They say I ask questions through my work, questions that shouldn't be asked? People said that these questions made them somewhat uncomfortable. But I guess that's what it means to make art, and express yourself, right? to express things that can't be expressed through words, or ordinary interactions.

But yeah, it's a bit strange, but the more I think about my stories, the more I'm in shock at what I wrote. Because it's clearly implying something, something I wasn't writing consciously. Like the AI love story I wrote, I was thinking about it. As it turns out, it's not just an AI love story. It's about grief and love through the lens of an AI. It's that AI discovering how messy humans are, and how messy we are when we love someone, and I think this project is going to talk to people, like really talk to them about their own relationships, and how messy they've been in their relationships.

Huneyn Ja'afri Hey, I actually think that’s a strength.

The stories that stay with people are often the ones that make them a little uncomfortable or force them to think differently. If your work is asking questions people aren’t used to confronting, it usually means there’s something honest and personal in it.

The angel story sounds like it has that kind of depth. I’d say lean into that rather than pull back from it.

Curious though what kind of questions are you exploring through it?

Abhijeet Aade Hey, yeah I wasn't conciously writing what I was doing. But I was in a bad mental space, and I just expressed it all out in that story. The story starts off with a lovely romance moment between Lucifer, and another angel, it was all before his banishment. Afterwards, the story spirals down a rabbit hole to a very compex, and complicated rejection of the hierarchy all fueled by love. It's love that fuels a huge rebellion in heaven. The aftermaths of that rebellion is that heaven lays broken, and one winged. Imagine if Marquis de Sade wrote the rebellion of lucifer, and thats basically what happens. But the thing is that the more I or anyone reads it, the more philosophical concepts they discover. It's surprising to me as its creator, because I wasn't aware of what I was writing.

Hi, Catherine James. Great to meet you. Welcome to the Stage 32 community. Stage 32 has a blog and video that'll help you navigate the platform and make connections:

www.stage32.com/blog/how-to-successfully-navigate-the-stage-32-platform-...

www.stage32.com/help?category=how-to-navigate-stage&parent=341676

Great to have you here Catherine! What state(s) do you practice in? Do you handle corporate business formation outside of entertainment? Also, I looked at your profile and Hot Flashes & Highways sounds awesome!! That sounds like a lot of fun!

Three stories in one book. I wrote three stories in one book. If you want to read it or buy it. I will give you the Amazon link.

https://www.amazon.com/Three-Princess-Bobby-Cinema/dp/1956161945/ref=tmm...

https://www.amazon.com/Third-Librarian-Detective-Bobby-Cinema/dp/1964804...

Go ahead and buy it or read it.

okay I will go ahead, kind drop your mail here so I can contact on mail.

Effectively, nothing. I created my covers through Canva and uploaded the files to Amazon/Draft2Digital for distribution myself. Only time I've ever had a cost attributed to a work is when I've licenced an image for the cover. I was once quoted £800 for a "professionally designed" cover. Some books have done better than others. Depends on the content and how much effort into marketing it I have done. I've tried pretty much everything with Access Denied - including an ad in Metro which cost a few hundred quid but only garnered two sales. The most ROI I ever got on anything, was when I provided a "press release" news article for a local free magazine. The book was featured and I got a lot of hits/sales from that article alone. Bizarre.

Before I self-publish, I register the copyright, and I obtain my own ISBN. After those costs, self-publishing is free through Draft-2-Digital and through Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. The true URL for the latter is kdp.amazon.com. A lot of scammer sites are using KDP and the Amazon logo to trick you into thinking it's Kindle Direct Publishing; they're not. Use KDP.Amazon.com. Spread this URL around.

Back 20 years ago most of the studios where looking for prequels to their properties. Not a lot happened. A good prequel will make it. Don't know if the studios are open to prequels as much anymore.

Think there's something interesting to them, if done right. The creator of the Netflix series Ratched famously launched his career that way - just by really liking One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest and crafting a compelling origin story for Nurse Ratched. Guy had none of the rights to the story but got it in the right hands (his professor who passed it along to his agent) then it landed on Ryan Murphy's desk.

Same with Wicked being a great prequel to the Wizard of Oz. First as a book, then a musical, and now a two-part major motion picture.

It totally can work when the right angle is taken into the story.

prequels keeps the story going and encourages for more. Unless the prequel is easy to predict the plot

I think prequels require extra care. They need to match the same level and potential of the original, because the usual reaction is, “Nah, it’s not as good as the first one.”

The trick with prequels is making the background/origin story feel like a new discovery of the material and world rather than just repeating the original story with a different angle. It's no secret studios are eager to lean on prequels for the predictability of favored IP. And as we’ve seen in recent years with films like Wicked, Wonka, Pearl, A Quiet Place: Day One, etc, there is definitely capital to be made from strong source material. What actually works is using the prequel to recontextualize the original—making us see the characters in a completely different light once we know where they started. If the stakes feel lower because we already know who survives, it’s not impactful. The tension has to shift from if they survive to how the experience breaks or builds them. I’d want to see a script that stands on its own legs so firmly that even someone who’s never seen the original would be hooked.

WHAT!? I am so in!

I can't wait for Netflix’s live-action Scooby-Doo series, Ashley Renée Smith! I love the origin story angle! I think you should keep the key characters, tone, and sense of mystery and humor while adding new things and characters when going from animation to live action. And show new features of original things, like the Mystery Machine.

I still have fond memories of the “Pup Named Scooby-Doo” Saturday morning show, which had fun animation and a subversive sense of humor. The characters were all kids, so it served as an origin story.

This was from a time when many series were “baby” versions of established characters. Muppet Babies, Tom and Jerry, Flintstones… I’m sure I’m forgetting a few. These things go in cycles. There’s only so many ways to reinvent.

Every movie cannot be Comedy!

Your job as a screenwriter is to entertain (not to preach, command, dictate...) Leading the audience astray a little bit here & there can certainly be entertaining at times and has its value but tying your story into knots for lack of a good provocative hobby leads toward a dead end. What we call a failure.

Memento (2000) is a story about someone with retrograde amnesia. It is presented in reverse order. to give viewers the feeling of the world as the MC experiences it. I had to see it twice to get past the discomfort of the situation.

This is a great breakdown of structure. I really appreciate how you explained the difference between flipping beginning/end vs. starting in the middle.

I’ve actually experimented with reverse storytelling in my book The Table of Regrets, where the narrative unfolds backward. Instead of building toward an ending, the reader is gradually uncovering why the ending happened.

One thing I noticed is exactly what you mentioned about cognitive load. I think that readers needed clear emotional anchors to stay grounded, even if the timeline was reversed. Without that, it can get disorienting quickly.

Some of my readers said the reverse structure made the story feel more reflective and haunting, because they were constantly reevaluating what they thought they knew.

I’m curious. Do you think reverse storytelling works better for certain genres like psychological or suspense versus others?

Feel free to organize your story in whatever order you wish. As long as it can be understood and delivered at its highest potential is all that matters!