Getting Top Production Value for Zero Cost

Most of you will know me from previous blogs on this site, and most of the time those blogs tend toward contentious subject matter. If this is your first time reading me, welcome. My name is Tennyson E. Stead, and I’m a writer and director who has worked in disciplines ranging from film finance to gaffing and grip.

As a screenwriter, script doctor, and ghostwriter, I’ve written more than 50 screenplays, and I’ve been paid for a sizable percentage of those. My directing and editing have won awards, and I take great pride in the strength of my craft and the strength of my community. Both are the result of monumental labor, a good deal of which was invested under extraordinary circumstances.

My own story is summarized more comprehensively in previous Stage 32 blogs than it will be in this article, and there’s a list of those at the bottom of this page. For the sake of this conversation, it’s enough to say that I was crippled for the better part of a decade, often losing the use of my arms, legs, voice, and senses, because volunteering on a set that was trying to shoot war scenes on a microbudget got me hit in the head with a sword. In the last two months, I’ve heard news about two separate productions, spearheaded by people I once referred to as trusted friends and colleagues, where the strength of our community was knowingly and willfully put in…