L.A. Fires From Warner Brothers!

L.A. Fires Force Open House Reschedule

I took the above photo from just outside Stage 19 at Warner Brothers, looking west across Forest Lawn Drive, at 7:30am on January 8,2025. I was there on production for the day - understandably, production shut down just a few minutes later. The image is actually just smoke! The apparent flames are from the sunrise. The smoke itself is from the fires in Pasadena and Eaton Canyon, over 10km away. I had to drive through that smoke twice to get to set, then to get back home. By morning, the Eaton Canyon fire had spread to within 1km of my home.

Most of the IPG and SSI leadership lives in the Los Angeles area, and our professional and personal circumstances have been made much more difficult this week! We feel we cannot create a good experience for the attendees at this time. So we have rescheduled the Virtual Open House from the week of January 13 to the week of March 17, 2025.

Our heart goes out to everyone affected directly or indirectly by the fires in the SoCal area. We are dealing with it first hand ourselves. If you know someone affected, be sure to see if you can help them out with anything.

But Now More FREE Seminars!

The reschedule gives us the opportunity to add a TWO new important FREE seminars of great interest to independent creators.

 The new seminars will be Contracts For Independent Producers & Writers, and Best Practices For Independent Film Production. These FREE seminars are full of realistic, practical and useful information for independent filmmakers of all levels - you should be there!

 Attendance is FREE but you must sign up for the links! See the schedule or presentations at https://stagescreen.org/open-house-schedule and sign up to get the link at https://stagescreen.org/open-house-registration

 If you have already signed up, you do not need to do so again!

And - A Reminder: Now is as important as ever to assist SSI with our mission to support the growth of independent creators in film.

How To Support The Missions of the IPG and SSI for FREE:

• Attend the Virtual Open House!

• Subscribe to the SSI YouTube channel @stageandscreeninnovations

• Follow the SSI Instagram page @stageandscreeninnovation

• Follow the IPG Instagram page @independentproducers

• Like & share our social media posts (it DOES make a difference to the algorithm)

• Share our newsletters

• Tell everyone about the upcoming FREE Virtual Open House

• Volunteer your time to help out with research, posting, graphic design, mentoring or more - even a couple hours in a week is a great help

• Donate your unused items (SSI can use certain items, and your donation might actually qualify for a tax receipt under IRS rules - contact us if you have something gathering dust to see if the ogranization can use it).

 And of course, if you are able to help out SSI with financial gifts of any level, find out how at https://stagescreen.org/donations

Keep well, keep safe and keep moving forward!