Thursday

We got up early and hit the Writers Workshop taught by Carol Munday Lawerence, an instructor for Bill Cosby's Screenwriting Workshop and writer of the movies "Cotton Club" and "Sleeping with Anger".  She gave a good overview of what it takes to write a successful screenplay and answered a lot of questions.  Clifton Powell  ("Roc" and "Menace 2 Society") joined the class to give an actors point of view one day.  The next day Reuben Cannon, one of the top casting directors in Hollywood and the producer of "Get On The Bus"," Dancing in September", and "Down in the Delta", came in to clue us in on what a producer is looking for in a script.  Emmy Award winning writer, director and producer Neema Barnette, who has directed "What's Happening Now", "A Different World", "The Cosby Show", and "Seventh Heaven", stopped by to give us a director's point of view and push her new movie, "Civil Brand".  John Singleton ("Boyz in the Hood", "Rosewood", and "Baby Boy") came in to tell us about the seriousness of good writing and give some insight into how he got started as a security guard at a movie studio while he was attending film school.  

After the Workshop we went back over to the Regal to check out some more movie screenings.  I checked out Neema Barnette's movie "Civil Brand", and I was glad I did, it was a great movie.  Check here for a review.  We were busy taping most of the day and didn't get to check out as many movies as we would have liked, but they showed the best movies a few times on different days.

After the screening we went back over to the hotel where Lincoln had sponsored a complimentary cocktail party out front.  We talked with a few of the ABFF originators and got to have a good conversation with several screen writers and some people from the BBC.  We also caught up with Wesley Jonathan from "City Guys" and John Blassingame, publisher of "Black Men" and "Today's Black Woman" magazines, who was surrounded by beautiful women as usual.  We also caught up with Ronald Lang, screenwriter of "All About The Benjamin's", who gave us the lowdown on how he went from a delivery man to a multimillion dollar screenwriter/producer in a few weeks, after he had been grinding it out in Miami since 1990.  Everybody was cool and really put us up on the down low of the industry.

The "Pitching to HBO" panel was next. It was held in a conference room in the Lowes and basically let people ask questions of executives with HBO on how to sell scripts to them.  Right after the HBO panel they had a similar panel with AOL/Time Warner.  I spotted Kenya Moore, "Trois", former "Miss USA", with John Singleton and tried to get an interview with her.  She said it was cool, but the camera got fogged up before we could shoot it, yes she was that hot.  She went to the same high school as I did, but she acted like she didn't know me until I brought up some little known facts about her past.  I didn't even get a chance to ask her for the book of mine I never got back from her in the tenth grade.

We left the panels and got ready for the comedy show at Billboard Live.  First there was a world premiere of Cedric the Entertainers ("Steve Harvey Show" and "Kings of Comedy") stand up movie, "Starting Lineup".  After the movie there was a comedy show hosted by Alex Thomas ("The Jamie Foxx Show"), who was airing his new stand up movie, "Straight Clowning".  The comedians were Chris Thomas ("Rap City"), Aries Spears  ("Mad TV"), and Rickey Smiley (BET).  After the show they cleared the chairs out and had an after-party right there.

 

Wednesday - Festival just getting started. We check out a few movies.

Friday - More movies. Actor's Boot Camp begins. More celebs show.