We were lucky to catch up with Stephen Wise recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Stephen, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I’ve always wanted to tell stories, even at the earliest age. As a child, I wrote short stories, plays, and scripts for my favorite TV shows. When I was 8, my friends introduced me to filmmaking, as even then I was a movie fan. All through growing up, I made my own short films with friends and family—basically anyone I could recruit to be in the films. I knew then I wanted to pursue either filmmaking or writing as a career. In college, I was fortunate enough to be selected for a limited film degree program at the University of Central Florida.

Stephen, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’ve written, directed, and/or produced over a dozen short films that have won over 30 awards worldwide. The biggest success so far is an fantasy adventure called “Sur’vi”, though I also directed a TV pilot called “Blackwater Blues” starring Corin Nemec and Jason London, which did quite well in the festival circuit. I also wrote several feature-length screenplays that received awards and accolades from international screenwriting contests and film festivals. My big claim to fame is I co-wrote a screenplay for a Batman film that was in development at Warner Bros. for a couple of years before they went in a different direction with the franchise. Professionally, I’ve worked for years creating client commercials and corporate videos, and I’ve won five Addy awards from the American Advertising Federation. Currently, I’m focusing on fiction writing, and have published two collections of short stories, “Portals of the Mind” and “The Signpost Up Ahead”.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

The best way to support artists and other creatives is to pay them what they’re worth. We as a society have grown accustomed to having everything at our disposal with the Internet, and we’ve devalued creativity. Artists have spent a lifetime honing their sills for our entertainment, or in many cases for the business sector to use for their own profits, and yet often they are taken for granted. Now with the emergence of generative A.I., the attitude is that anyone can type something into a prompt and miraculously get what they want without input from any other humans. If we truly want to keep art alive, we need to support the artists.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I’m on a constant mission to learn new things. I’ve taught myself various skills, such as graphic design and interior layout for novels, and am continuously investing in apps that can help me succeed with video production, writing, editing, or other aspects of creative work.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://stephenjwise.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stephenwiseauthor/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stephenwisefilmmaker
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenjwise/

Image Credits

Headshot credited to Kristina Wright.