THE SCRIBBLERS TOOLBOX
Welcome to my ever-expanding collection of screen scribbling tips, tools, observations, and topical ephemera for fellow creative types to peruse, use, disseminate, or disregard. My blog is also free on Substack! Subscribe to receive a fave weekly post sent to your inbox.
Blog Post Search Examples: plot, character, story, dialogue, transmedia, Lost, game, VALORANT, insanely, blather, Shane Black
From Grind to Growth
The case for creative evolution over creative exhaustion.
Red Flags of Bad Production Leadership
Bad leadership isn't always loud or cruel. Sometimes it's dysfunction dressed up as decisiveness. These are some red flags that can sink a student short or a studio tentpole.
Scribblers Rewire Reality
When millions of people watch the same stuff, play the same games, binge the same shows, we're literally rewiring how entire cultures think about what's normal, what's heroic, what's even possible.
A Scribbler’s Secret Weapon
The analog habit that saved my grades, shaped my career, and keeps my mind from overheating.
Could AI Keep the Multiverse From Breaking Canon?
When blockbuster franchises face uncivil lore wars, maybe it’s time to call in the machines to broker a cease-fire.
Your AI Prompt is Burning Watts
Every AI query is a flick of the light switch. The real question is what kind of power grid we want feeding the incoming AI renaissance/apocalypse.
What Fashion Can Teach Hollywood About Its Midlife Crisis
There’s something weird happening in luxury fashion. And if you squint a little, it looks quite similar to what’s been happening in Hollywood.
Narrative House Party Remix
How Gen Z Hacked the Story Machine and Why It's the Best Thing That's Ever Happened to Your Creativity
The WANT Framework
WANT. Four letters that’ll fix your flat scenes and give actors something they can actually play.
Creative Samurai Don't Wait for the Phone to Ring
You pour yourself into a pitch or audition and then... nothing. No “pass.” No “thanks but no thanks.” Just the sound of your inbox doing its best ghost impression. That silence isn’t rejection, it’s the cue for your training montage.
You Don’t Need a Film Degree to Become a Film Director
Half the directors I've worked with never touched a camera in college.
The 80/20 Rule of Creative Careers
The secret to creative success is broken pots.
Thou Shalt Not Make Life Easy for Your Protagonist
Audience engagement and rooting interest come from watching someone overcome serious obstacles.
Film School for Culture Warriors?
Filmmakers are worshiping past forms while meme lords are rewriting the present with stolen Adobe licenses and no chill. Maybe we're teaching storytellers to think small.
Less Consuming, More Creating
The World Needs Your Masterpiece, Not Another Masterclass
Hollywood’s Creative Destruction
Economist Joseph Schumpeter called capitalism “a perennial gale of creative destruction.” The next decade will belong to those of us who can treat this disruption not just like a catastrophic gale to avoid, but an opportunity to fly our kites.
The Van Dyke Zone!
Map a Pivot Chapter Resurgence
The Imperfection Manifesto
Why Human Mess Beats Machine Perfect
Basement Holodecks and Kitchen Time Machines
What happens when superfans stop consuming their favorite stories and start living in them? Spoiler: Their bedrooms become more rad than a Pinewood movie set.
360 Video Revolution: Coverage Chaos = Creative Paradise
Once you grok what a 360 camera is capable of, you realize it flips the filmmaking process on its head: capture everything first, then choose your shots when you get to post.