Category: By Guests

PJ McIlvaine: The Best Laid Plans…

Ms McIlvaine relaxing in her domain

by PJ McIlvaine

As I sit here, coughing, hacking, and sneezing, with my nose a continual fountain of snot and mucus, I had started off January with such high hopes. I always do…until reality bites me in the butt.

2018 ended with a bang. In late November, my husband had major surgery. It was quite unexpected, and the surgeon was candid in what could go wrong. Maybe too candid, which only added to our fear, worry, and confusion. Thankfully, husband sailed through it, and is now pretty much back to normal.

What is not back to normal is my writing routine. read article

Herbie J Pilato Presents the Man Wonder – Burt Ward

Everything you need to know about the “Legendary Pop-Icon and Humanitarian,” by our legendary Contributing Editor Emeritus.” (That title means that Herbie, erm, outgrew us…and his professional growth spurt makes us proud.) Anyway:

by Herbie J Pilato

Burt Ward, pop-culture icon and world-renown humanitarian, was about three seconds late for our phone interview, and he apologized.

But the apology, of course, was not necessary, certainly because his delay was only a minuscule of a moment, and secondly because he was detained due to his non-stop efforts to rescues dogs. read article

How to Become the Most Productive Screenwriter You Know

It’s Valentine’s Day, which means that instead of working your butt off writing your heart out (now there’s a mixed metaphor to be reckoned with!) you’ll probably be making sweet love all day…or being upset because you aren’t.

But tomorrow will come, and with it the siren call of your chosen profession – writing for TV, or films, or even publication. Here’s a Valentine’s Day gift to get your going at en even higher level than you’ve been at so far:

read article

John Ostrander: And the Award Goes To…

by John Ostrander

So, the nominations for this year’s Academy Awards have been announced and there were a few surprises. A super-hero film, Black Panther, became the first of its kind to be nominated and Netflix landed its first nomination for Best Picture as well and Meryl Streep got nominated as Best Actress. No, wait – Streep wasn’t nominated. That was the surprise. I thought there was some sort of rule she had to be nominated.

I have different levels of interest in the Academy Awards depending on the category but a particular favorite of mine is soundtrack, a.k.a. Original Score. And the nominees this year are:

Black Panther — Ludwig Goransson read article

How to Network & Collaborate (Successfully!) Online

by Bri Castellini

How to find your community

Sign up for industry newsletters and email lists

For filmmaking in particular, it’s not hard to find newsletters that are relevant to you. Newsletters are a great way to figure out where your peers are hanging out on a regular basis, get updates on upcoming events (online and off), and who in your industry you should be paying attention to. And might I just drop in to say that if you sign up for the Stareable newsletter 1 you’ll also receive a 32 page eBook on marketing? Something to think about. read article