RB's Stage 32 News, Notes, Discussions and Other Fun Stuff (February 20, 2015)

Welcome to the weekend, everyone. An Introduce Yourself Weekend and an Oscar weekend at that!

Before we get started, a quick word about David Carr, the brilliant New York Times reporter and one of my writing heroes, who died suddenly last Friday at the all too young age of 58.

As a writer, Carr entered my orbit while writing for the Atlantic Weekly, New York Magazine and Inside.com. I was taken by his brash, straight forward, no holds barred style of reporting. I was thrilled when he joined the New York Times in 2002 as a cultural reporter. Instantly, his Carpetbagger, and later his Media Equation columns became must reading for me.

A short time later, Carr came into my personal orbit while I was publishing and editing Razor magazine. I won’t get into all the details here, lest I get misty. But, he was a true gent and his passion for journalism, and integrity in journalism at that, always captured my heart.

Much has been written about Carr’s troubles with drug addiction, but no one wrote about it more poignantly and pointedly than the man himself. And that was the beauty of David Carr. He was a man who was unquestionably fair to the subjects he covered and while managing to be fair to himself. He will be terribly missed.

I would urge all to check out the documentary Page One: Inside the New York Times where Carr is unquestionably the star of the show, as well as his raw, searing, naked memoir The Night of the Gun: A Reporter Investigates the Darkest Story of His Life. His Own. You won’t be disappointed.

I’ve also included a couple of great articles about Carr under ENTERTAINMENT NEWS including highlights from a speech he gave to journalism students at Boston University’s communications school.

I thank David for the memories and the inspiration. May he rest in peace.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

As mentioned, it’s Oscar Weekend! Hope you’ve entered our contest. If you haven’t you can do so here. Also, for the 4^th straight year, I’ll be live Tweeting the awards over on Twitter. You can follow me and the action here. Come join me, we’ll have a great time. But in the meantime, I have plenty of Oscar related information under ENTERTAINMENT NEWS including a look at an Oscar voters brutally honest ballot, a plea to hold the Oscars as if it were a political election and an exclusive Oscars voting poll that’s quite revealing.

Also under ENTERTAINMENT NEWS, a look at the ASC and WGA winners; the new Hollywood trend of turning documentaries into full length narrative films; a filmmaker explains why he shot his film on an iPhone 6; a list of short film filmmaker grants; The Breakfast Club turns 30; Sarah Jones parents ask for a moment of silence; YouTube stars are getting signed to WME; Amazon greenlights 5 more shows and much, much more.

I have some really cool stuff under VIDEOS including a look at how they did the “single take” in Birdman, a video essay of Werner Herzog’s view on nature (yep), the complete video of David Carr’s last interview with Edward Snowden and Laura Poitras, the director of Citizenfour and a look at how Patricia Arquette left her ego at the door while filming Boyhood.

Under TIPS, I have filmmaking, screenwriting and voice acting info.

It’s been a crazy few weeks around here. Parties, events, panels, conferences, film premieres, contests, educational offerings and more. We’ve collected all the goings on under STAGE 32 NEWS. We also had a terrific Stage 32 meetup in Hollywood last week. There are plenty more forming all over the world. You can find those under STAGE 32 MEETUPS.

Additionally, it was a record week for Lounge posts. We’ve highlighted some of the most commented on and intriguing under POPULAR AND INTERESTING LOUNGE DISCUSSIONS. Also, it was a banner week for Stage 32 members. Get inspired and send a note of congratulations to the subjects of this week’s STAGE 32 SUCCESS STORIES.

Finally, as mentioned at the top, it is Introduce Yourself Weekend here on Stage 32. Over the past 10 days or so, over 8,000 new members have joined this rapidly growing community. That means there are potentially 8,000 new creatives for you to network with. I urge all of you, whether you are new or a veteran of the site to not only make a post, but to welcome and engage others who do as well.

As I’ve been saying for the last 3 years, you never know when you are going to make a career or life altering connection. Perhaps today is the day.

As always I thank you for the support. I hope you enjoy the content. I welcome you to discuss and debate any and all of the material below in the Comments section.

Have a wonderful weekend and I hope to see you during my live Tweeting of the Oscars on Sunday.

Cheers!

RB