Jeffrey Hardy: In Portland, Oregon.

Hey! FilmProfit Has Launched a Fun Quiz About Horror Films -- Take the quiz and if you are among the first five to get it right, you get a 30% discount on Projections of Potential Income (a Filmmaker's Financials Model) for your low-budget horror film. http://bit.ly/FilmProfitHorrorQuizpost

Hi, Mimi, there are a couple of parts to your post, one, dealing with worn-out ideas people have about who Americans are. I completely agree with you and hope we can overcome the ignorance and the just plain discrimination we have been living with, on screens, on the street, at work and in our homes. The second, discussing China as the savior of the creatives, I am less in agreement with. China is a very hard place to do business with. I have several clients who are well-ensconced in China and doing movies or slates. It is not easy to get in, and it is not easy to meet all the factors of business discrimination (the rules). But in particular, the chart you present here needs to have a lot of context. North America is shown as a flat line in terms of growth of box office, while China is soaring. But it was not ten years ago that movies were often shown on the outside walls of buildings all over rural China. There was little to no infrastructure, including the infrastructure for the money made from movies. So, where China has grown has been impressive, but there was no way to go but up. This chart compares growth, not sales. In 2013 it was $3.57B, and in 2014 it was $4.82B in China box office. In those years North America was over $10.3B at the box office, each, still the largest single market in the world. In a handful of years, maybe a little less, China could surpass N.A. in box office sales. It is an impressive story, and all the majors and many minors have established beachheads there, but even those beachheads have to meet myriad rules and regulations and controls and do not have unfettered access to the Chinese market. This is a very complex story, and, hopefully, one day in the near future, it will create fantastic opportunities for many many people, including yourself.

I just wanted to point out a new blog posting over at Baseline Intelligence focusing on foreign box office, primarily China. Lots of good info that many filmmakers are curious about. http://goo.gl/UXvuaM. In light of the growing impact of the international markets, SSN takes a closer look at the top territories and the elements needed to score with audiences, as we break it down

Hey Jeffrey, I'm excited to announce our new Stage 32 Lounge, a major upgrade to the previous Discussions area. Here are some of the highlights:

• Subscriptions - Subscribe to your favorite topics and stay up to date on the subjects that matter to you most.
• My Discussions - Never lose track of discussions you created or commented on.
• Better topics - We've completely reorganized the discussion topics to make it much easier to browse and post discussions.

Hey Jeffrey, a few days ago we implemented a new privacy setting to give you the option of accepting private messages only from users within your network. Today, I discovered a bug with the way this option is set for new users. I just wanted to let you know that the bug is now fixed, so all members are now able to receive private messages from any other member (the default setting). If you'd like to receive private messages only from users within your network, you can change this setting here. Also, you can access your privacy settings at any time from the drop-down menu that appears when you hover over your profile photo in the upper right-hand corner of the page.

Hi Jeffrey, we've just added a new section to your tool bar - Resources. Here you'll find links to the best acting, filmmaking, and screenwriting resources as well as a comprehensive list of film schools and film festivals. We'll be adding new categories and links regularly. One more thing, you can now find the "Messages" link in your sidebar right under your name. Enjoy!

Hi Jeffrey, we've just released a pretty big update that I think you'll be excited about. You can now see posts and updates by everyone in your network right on your own wall. Happy networking!

Hi Jeffrey, check out the new "Find Work" section (under Projects at the top of your screen). Here you'll find projects in development that are seeking talent in the occupations you selected in your profile. So if you’re a screenwriter, you'll see projects in need of screenwriters. It’s the perfect tool for matching creative talent with suitable projects.

Hey Jeffrey, welcome to Stage 32! I'm the lead developer at Stage32.com. This is your network, so please let me know if you have any questions or feedback about the site. We'd love to hear your comments. Thanks. P.S. - We ask all members to invite at least 5 other people. Help build your network today.