Q & A with Stage 32 owner Curt Blakeney

Every day, there are thousands of talented individuals searching for like minded souls with which they can collaborate. They join writing or acting classes, theater groups, and on line forums. They act in student films, direct and submit short subject films to festivals, and enter screenplay contests. They take the first step and fight for the second. They search for answers to the never ending "hows" and "whys." Some take pride in bucking the relentless frustrations and challenges, many more succumb to them. Almost all wonder: "How can I make my dream a reality? How can I increase my odds and give myself the greatest chance to succeed?"

Welcome to Stage 32 – a community for people working in or with a desire to work in film or theater. It’s a place to gather, to discuss and develop projects, to join actor with director, director with producer, producer with cast and crew. As the saying goes, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.

Let's get to know Curt Blakeney, the co-founder of Stage 32

Q: Curt, you're a well-known sports personality in Phoenix, tell me about your love for cinema as a kid?

CB: I’ve always been a film buff. I really enjoyed watching movies as a kid; especially summer matinees. Nothing like the thrill of a movie doubleheader with a tub of popcorn and a box of M&Ms. I was also a fan of the drive-in … many good memories there. My awareness of film was heightened by my brother Eric, who is a writer and director in Hollywood.

Q: Who were some of your favorite actors, directors and movies?

CB: I’ve always been a big fan of Spielberg movies: Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, ET, Saving Private Ryan. He’s one of the great storytellers in the business. As far as actors, certainly on my top 10 list all-time are Paul Newman, Gene Hackman, Tom Hanks, Morgan Freeman, Daniel Day-Lewis. There are so many…too many to list. More recently, I think Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert Downey Jr. and Brad Pitt are exceptional.

Q: Your family is no stranger to Hollywood success. Your brother wrote the screenplay for Gunshy, a successful feature film starring Liam Neeson and was a producer/show runner for "21 Jump Street, the TV series that put Johnny Depp on the map.What did you learn about the movie industry through his eyes?

CB: Just how important it is to work tirelessly and network, network, network. It’s so important to build those relationships in the industry. It’s no industry to be shy.

Q: How did you come up with the idea for Stage 32?

CB: Two years ago, my business partner, Richard Botto, and I were in Los Angeles for the American Film Market (AFM). At the time, we had our own film production company, Fair Warning Productions, and had a few projects in development. AFM is a gathering place for filmmakers, sales reps, distributors, financiers and others from around the globe. Everyone is in town for one week pitching their projects, pitching their craft, trying to find funding, etc. The most vibrant place was the bar at the Loews Santa Monica Hotel. There we witnessed so many projects being discussed and so many filmmakers with completed films begging to be heard. And once AFM was over, those people went back to their respective cities and waited another 12 months for the next AFM. On the flight back from LA, a light bulb went off. We thought it would be great to create a virtual meeting place so that people could discuss film projects and connect year round, anywhere in the world.

Q: What are some of the success stories that have emerged from Stage 32?

CB: There are so many examples of success stories, that we created a forum for it: http://www.stage32.com/lounge/stage_32_success_stories But a couple that stand out. Matt E. Hudson, a director, producer and screenwriter from London, became the first of several to shoot a film (called “Reduction”) using crew found entirely from Stage 32. And Persephone Vandegrift, a screenwriter from Seattle who has been tirelessly networking through Stage 32 since she joined, was hired to write the pilot for a historical miniseries “The Vanquished.” The numbers keep growing as directors find actors, filmmakers find screen writers, producers find crew.  

Q: What is your goal for yourself and the participants who network on Stage 32?

CB: The goal of the site is to bring together like-minded individuals who collaborate to promote creative growth in film… and television and theater as well. So members can upload their projects, resumes, loglines, scripts, photos and videos – anything that shows off their skills and talents. People can private message other members, post on their walls, chat live or post on our message board – called the Stage 32 Lounge. It’s a very open and friendly community. Film students can get advice from seasoned professionals, screenwriters can get tips from other screenwriters, people can share their experiences. We’ve also had guest blogs from award-winning writers such as Danny Rubin (Groundhog Day), Rex Pickett (Sideways) and Doug Richardson (Bad Boys), whose “tales from the trenches” have really resonated with Stage 32 members.

It’s a social network to not only communicate with others, but learn, teach, share and foster.

We have a saying, that sums ups the site. Stage 32 is the social network uniquely populated with the most creative people on Earth. That’s our mantra…we’re trying to build this amazing global network of incredibly talented people and let the sparks fly.

For more information, visit www.stage32.com

Q & A with Christopher Keane

Romancing the A-List Stars

Q & A with author/screenwriter Christopher Keane

Writer Chris Keane has penned books that have been made into movies and series, The Hunter (Paramount) and The Huntress (TV series on USA Network), along with teaching at Harvard and NYU and writing features. He came to the conclusion that the best way by far to get you book or screenplay into production is to place the greatest amount of focus on the central character. After all, it only makes sense. Agents and managers want their A-list clients to star in movies that will enhance their careers. And so Chris wrote Romancing The A-List. This book follows his international best-selling book, How To Write A Selling Screenplay.

Keane, the author of 14 books and numerous screenplays, offers his valuable insight into the world of Hollywood, the movie industry and how far some stars will go to make a point in this exclusive Q & A.

Q: Chris, you've written several books on how to write and sell screenplays. What's the particular focus of Romancing the A-List?

CK: The idea behind it is simple. After spending time in the movie world you see pictures being made for all sorts of reasons: The financing is available. The studio has to make it (or start it) before the fiscal year is up so that they can ask the parent company for more dough next year. Pictures are made because they can be. The producer/director is a joy to work with, meaning there's a quiet set, and the pictures he or she has made came in on time and on or under budget. But mainly, by a large margin, it's who's in it. Star power reigns. Stars want starring roles that will enhance their careers. The best way to for that to happen is for the screenwriter to pen a juicy main part, a powerful character that drives the story, the picture and the box office. Once a screenwriter gets that main character down the rest of the characters, the story, the beats, etc., all rise to that level.

Q: What inspired you to write this book?

CK: I've been teaching a course or two every semester for years, at Emerson, Harvard, Northeastern, LMU, wherever I happened to be. My students suggested that I write all this down in a book. I hemmed and hawed for a while. I owed a publisher a book or a producer a script, so I didn't have any real incentive at the moment. This one student kept pushing. One time she said, “If you write the book we won't call you for help at two o'clock in the morning.” The next day I was on it. Well, that's not the whole story. I love to learn and love to teach, so it was a way to learn a whole lot more about this main character/driver and to share it with whomever is interested out there.

Q: Everybody wants to write a screenplay because they think it's a glamorous business. Give us a dose of reality about the movie industry.

CK: You've got to be very good to make a living as a writer in this business. You have to be willing to spend sometimes years before you hit. It's the sticktuitiveness within that makes the difference. I don't think you should ever give up if you're a committed writer. So you drive cabs or wait on tables, so what? Do it. Otherwise, you'll fall away like all the others and maybe spend the rest of your life wondering if you spent enough time before you bailed.

Q: How has the movie industry changed when you first entered the business in the late '70s?

CK: When I came in I was 21, just got out of college and had written a book that Steve McQueen made into The Hunter, his last picture before he died. I was in culture shock from the whole thing. I remember not really paying attention to much at all; the business, the deals. I had an agent and a lawyer who took care of that for me. I just lived with my subject, a bounty hunter, his family, and half the criminal element of Southern California. I wasn't so concerned with deals as I am now. I thought it was a big wonderful experience. Ignorance is bliss. Now I check the trades and hear conversations tinged with desperation more than I had back then. It's more global now, with more possibilities. The indie market is greater, the Internet is the new delivery system. It was cozier then.

Q: Writing a book and writing a screenplay appear to be two separate art forms. You've done both. Can you briefly explain the difference?

CK: In a book you get to explore, in words, the inner life of the character. In a screenplay you can't see thought except as it generates action. I prefer neither. For me, the subject matter determines the form.

Q: It's been said that the screenwriter is the least respected person on the totem pole in Hollywood. Can you cite an example of something that's happened to you first-hand to illustrate that point?

CK: I was with a top flight agency for a long time and had a project that later became a series. I was told that because the agency wanted to sign a production company that wanted my project in return for signing, I was told I would have to sit way in the back of the bus. I left the agency.

Q: Didn't Steve McQueen give you some acting advice on the set of The Hunter?

CK: Somehow I talked my way into playing a part in the movie, of a bailbondsman, in a scene with Steve and Eli Wallach. I was nervous. I was supposed to convince Steve's character, a bounty hunter, to go to Mexico to pick up some bad character. The scene took place in a diner. It was maybe the fourth take (because I was going up on my lines) when Steve took me aside and said, “Don't be so hard on yourself. You're hard on yourself, aren't you?” I nodded. “You're doing great. Pretend you're having fun.” So I did and on the next take the director locked it in.” A lot of people applauded, but I suspect it wasn't the performance but that I gotten through it.” I am hard on myself.

Q: Kevin Costner once said that the screenwriter's first script is always his/hers best because they put so much time and effort into their debut. Do you agree with that sentiment?

CK: The first script is when you stick your hands into the putty and come out with something. It's the first raw experience of creating in a new form. It takes a reorientation into how to put a movie on a page. A lot of people think the person who comes up with the story should have first position. It's actually the person who develops the story and puts in on the page, in 100 pages, that gets first position. That's the hard work. The WGA mandates that the screenplay is worth 75 percent of the credit/profits and the story 25 percent. In my first screenplay I decided to choose as a subject a thriller in the streets of New York. I told somebody I could write a screenplay in one day, and did. Almost. I got through eighty-seven pages before I fell asleep. I read it the next day. It was so bad I couldn't finish it. The second one was about a team of super heist artists who detonated a massive bomb ten miles off the coast of Palm Beach, Florida and engineered the explosion to send a fairly good sized tidal wave to plow over Palm Beach, creating enough chaos so that the heist team could knock over the Worth Avenue banks via helicopters which dropped them, in their wet suits, into the locations. Whew. That was also a stinker. But valuable because I learned from my mistakes. I also learned a BIG LESSON from someone who told me if I wanted to be a screenwriter to promise myself that I would read two screenplays a week for the next six months. I did. That was the most valuable lesson I ever learned. I learned what this strange form was all about, from the pros. If would be screenwriters don't burn through a ton of screenplays they're dead before they start.

Q: What makes for a compelling character on the screen and how do you go about developing that character?

CK: A compelling character for me is one who I have not seen before, a true original, but with whom I can identify, on an emotional level. A character that upsets my expectations. A character that I can't wait to get to in the morning to see what he or she is going to do next, within reason. When I start a new project, whether it's a WGA job or a spec, I have an idea for the story and/or the main character. It doesn't matter what comes first. It is important to remember that character drives story rather than the other way around. I make sure the main character is in real trouble right from the start. Something's very wrong with his/her life and it's going to get worse. Henry James said a hundred and some-odd years ago that if you don't put your main character in the most critical situation he or she has ever encountered, THE STORY IS NOT WORTH TELLING. Nothing short of a extraordinarily screwed up, driven, fascinating, dynamic main character is going to attract A-List talent. Attracting A-List actors is, by far, the best way to get a movie made. Period. I write at length, with tons of examples, about this subject in the new book, Romancing The A-List: Writing the Script The Big Stars Want to Make.

Q: Without naming names, what's the most outrageous thing you've ever seen an actor or actress do?

CK: I saw the biggest box office star in the world at the time shoot a beautiful high-back Victorian-era chair with .45, his purpose being the need to kill the aura of a director he had just fired. The director had been sitting in the chair a moment before. The star told him to get up and move out of the way; he wasn't worth killing for real. I tell the whole story of this A-List star in the forward to a book I wrote a few years ago, How to Write a Selling Screenplay.

Romancing the A-List: Writing the Script The Big Stars Want to Make will be published by Michael Wiese Productions on April 1. The 190-page book can be pre-ordered by going to www.amazon.com.

Himmelstein subscribes to the A-List

Pre-order Romancing The A-List

"Here's the difference between Romancing the A-List and every other screenwriting book clogging the shelf: Chris Keane has not only been through the movie and TV wars he's still engaged in them. His insights aren't dated or theoretical -- they're as real as the studio notes he got last week. Even more impressive, he doesn't just linger on his successes. He's confident enough to analyze his failures and those hard-earned lessons are some of the most instructive in the book."

David Himmelstein, screenwriter, Power, Talent For The Game, Village of the Damned

Christopher Keane finds the passion

Get Keane on passion

When a new or veteran screenwriter comes to me for help, the first question I ask is this:

What's the story you need to tell?

The question goes right to the heart of the writer's passion, which to me is the crucial ingredient in any script. After twenty years writing and teaching in the movie business, I can tell the difference between someone's passion to write a story and a mild interest in getting into the industry.

What about the changing face of the movie business — in The New Hollywood? Bring your passion, yes, but the rules have changed. Hollywood draws from the provinces. Studio pictures fail where scripts from beyond Hollywood's borders prevail. Why? And how? And why are so-called smaller movies drawing top actors and directors, paying the big dollars, winning the big awards?

In The New Hollywood, subject matter defies industry convention and wisdom. While the top producers wrangle for big budget features, everyone else climbs outside the Hollywood box looking for dynamic product.

How do you tap that source? Why are story preparation and story beats the driving forces behind great scripts? How do you NOT fall into the flat character hole? How do capitalize on your own passion for a story, rather than derivative junk, to bring your script home?

When Kyle Rankin (co-director of 2003's Project Greenlight, shooting this spring in Austin, Texas) walked into my class four years ago, a fire burned. Kyle had a story to tell. He wanted to get the story out, and in class he did, and now he's launched a career.

It's all about passion and canniness and paying attention to a changing Hollywood. Kyle didn't write the movie he thought Hollywood might want to see. He wrote the story he needed to tell. He had the passion and I had the tools to help him turn the story into a knockout screenplay, which he then made into a movie.

I bring the same tools to my Script Analysis and into my Screenwriting Workshops. You bring the passion and I'll bring the nuts and bolts and together we'll build the world of your screenplay.

Unlike some teachers who do not write for the movie business, I am a working screenwriter. I'm currently writing a script for Samuel L. Jackson. I just finished an action comedy optioned by Michael Schiffer's Ballpark Productions. I had a series on last year off one of my books (The Huntress USA Network). And when all this is cleared out, there's a family-in-crisis story I'm dying to write.

If you've got the passion to tell a story that lives within you, bring it and we'll find a way to make it happen.

For more information on Christopher Keane's now book Romancing the A-List, go to www.keanewords.com or www.amazon.com.