YULETIDE STORYBOARD THOUGHTS

Here we are at perhaps my last blog of the year. Not with a bang or with a whimper.  To some it up, the year was financially disappointing as the feature market dropped out, but it was still personally fulfilling I got a number of screenplays written or improved upon, and one of them is being sent out next month by a literary manager.

In the feature world of storyboards, there was very little work to be found by the summer. The A TEAM film I was working on with John Singleton went the way of the dinosaur (scientists have proven the T-Rex and the like were killed in “Development Hell”) and I really had to scramble.

I was shown that unlike politicians and characters on Melrose Place, storyboard artists look out for each other. Dave Lowery, Darrin Denlinger, Darryl Henley, Josh Sheppard and Jim Magdaleno all gave me leads for work. Some panned out, some didn’t and some will be revealed once the Holidays are over, but at least these people tried to help.  Union 790(Illustrators) “merged” into the Union 800 (Art Directors) and we’ll see how that goes.  Was not a “easy” transition to be sure.

Commercials ended up saving me. Old friends/ director clients like Maurice Marable, Malcolm Lee, Bennett Miller,  John Singleton, Erik White and Hank Perlman, all gave me multiple gigs which really came in handy.

I started learning the STORYBOARD PRO software and it is quite good, it’s just taken me a while to learn and to have time to practice, as I write so often in my “spare time”.  I did not want to “learn” while doing a gotta-have-it-now job.

I got into the connection sites LINKEDIN (great for business contacts) through my pal Lawrence “The Dark Knight” Christmas, and FACE BOOK….well because I kept getting invited to Facebook.  I have been able to connect with old friends I haven’t seen for years like Mark A. Davis, whom I worked with at Bloomingdales 15 years ago, and who was a talented young artist. I’ll find out how his art is going soon. I also hooked back up with my old pal Darryl Barnes (Hip Hop’s “Smooth B” of the duo “Nice & Smooth”) who is just as cool and down to earth as he was when we last saw each other in NYC in the late 90’s.

My wife Betty K. Bynum’s singing, acting and writing talent stretched into designing handbags, and she made her first sale TODAY!!

Our son Joshua turned 13, and is my pride and joy. Good kid, good looking like his mother, and he’s getting better at studying his schoolwork.

Mom turned 85 and what can I say after that?

My wife and I will both sell screenplays next year, God willing, and then we will start taking names.

Bless you all for now.