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The Writers Guild of America (WGA) has announced the winners of the WGA Awards for outstanding achievement in writing. In the Screenplay category, "Midnight in Paris," written by Woody Allen, took home the ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY award while "The Descendants"

I spent the weekend attending the Las Vegas Film Festival at the Hilton Hotel and had an amazing time speaking with the winner of the Indie Icon Award actor Michael Madsen and the moderator of the special event actor/director Ash Adams

As soon as we thought we could predict the outcome of the Oscars, here comes another surprise! This one's brought to you by the Writers Guild of America. Picked for Best Original Screenplay was Christopher Nolan's "Inception. " The director, famously dissed for not getting a Best Director Oscar nomination, may just win the Best Original Screenplay come Oscar night. Oscar front-runner, "The King's Speech " was not nominated because it didn't quality under union rules which prompted Nolan to say during his WGA acceptance award that he looked forward to a time when he could accept the award "without qualification."

Part 2 of the Filmmakers Notebook Q&A with the talented and insightful filmmaker, Angelo Bell. As I mentioned before, it is not only Angelo's creativity and abilities that made me want to find out more about him and his work, but his willingness to share his knowledge with others, so here he is once again offering valuable information I think you'll enjoy reading.

The first time I heard of Angelo Bell was on Twitter. I read a couple of his tweets about writing screenplays and wanted to know more. Here was a filmmaker with wit and wisdom who was willing to share both with friends and strangers alike via social media. Very quickly, I realized how much this man understands the delicate balance between business and artistry when it comes to making movies. So, it is with great pleasure that I bring you Part 1 of this Filmmakers Q&A with Angelo.

For quite some time I've much admired Producer Marvin V. Acuna's work, such as "The Great Buck Howard" and have been a frequent visitor to his website The Business of Show Institute (BOSI). In fact, I had the opportunity to meet him over a year ago in Los Angeles and now I have the pleasure of introducing you to him and BOSI as part of this Filmmakers Notebook Q&A.

The second part of my Q&A interview with Producer/Actress Charlene Blaine-Schulenburg concentrating on her point of view as a film producer.

One independent film that has caught the attention of fans and film festivals alike is the drama "Reach for Me ". The heartwarming story about the inhabitants of a hospice featured a stellar cast including Seymour Cassel, Alfree Woodard, Lacey Chabert, Johnny Whitworth, Adrienne Barbeau and actress Charlene Blaine-Schulenburg, who also produced the film, and was directed by LeVar Burton. Recently I had the pleasure of doing a Q&A with Charlene and finding out more about her and the film. Since there is so much interesting information I've broken the interview into two parts. Today's piece centers on her award winning movie, which received the Breakthrough Accomplishment at AARP's Movies for Grownups Awards 2010.

Steve Marra, Director of the independent film "Amanda", had reason to smile last May as he celebrated the movie's red carpet premiere along with cast members Ariana Dubynin (Amanda) and Bill Bannister (Bob Bender) at the Giordano Theatre housed in the Las Vegas Hilton.

Last Sunday Executive Producer Chris Battle and I sat down with a wonderfully talented young man, who is working on what we hope will be the final edit of "Accused ".