2007 A PRODUCTIVE YEAR!!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

This year promises to be phenomenal for Black Pearl Filmworks! We are in talks with several studios about 2 of our film projects--Reality Check and Oil & Blood. The plan is to shoot the trailer in February and go into production in the summer.
But wait--there's more! The documentary "Fatherland" about Morenike's trip to Nigeria to meet her father and family for the first time is currently in post-production!



Let's kick 2007 off by checking out the show I produced for E! Networks called "Love Ride". It was a great experience--I met great people and got to see how it's done on the West Coast. Turns out, as expected, I kicked ass! LA is definitely a hard town, but this job reminded me of just how much I have to offer as a producer! The only obstacle has been resources and opportunity. But Black Pearl is creating that for herself!!!


Don't miss Morenike's episode of Love Ride: Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick airing on Sunday, January 21 at 10pm on E!

BETJ Cool...Like That!

Producing at BETJ was a very rewarding experience! I worked there for 3 years including during it's transition from BET Jazz to BETJ, gaining 23 million viewers when they were added to DirecTV in March 2006. They are currently about to celebrate their One Year anniversary and I'm glad to have been a part of that history.
At BETJ, I traveled throughout the Caribbean producing one hour travel specials to promote network sponsored jazz and music festivals in Bermuda, Barbados, St. Lucia and Turks & Caicos. I directed talent including Kim Fields, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Freddie Jackson, Bebe Winans, Jeffrey Osbourne, and Leon. We had adventure upon adventure exploring the islands, enjoying the food and learning about the culture and of course, enjoying the music! I won a Telly Award in 2003 for the special I produced with Malcolm-Jamal Warner and Karen White in Barbados!
It was also at BETJ that I created my first television series, entitled "Influences." This half hour series is part intimate interview, part live performance! Over the years, I've discovered that quite a few contemporary R&B artists have strong musical influences in Jazz and Soul ( or in Ben Harpers case, folk music too!) .

This show was a way to "bridge the gap" between the new and older generations. I directed personal interviews with artists such as Meshell Ndgeocello, Dwele (Virgin Records), Floetry (Geffen Records), Ben Harper (Virgin Records), Raheem Devaughn (Jive Records), Anthony Hamilton (Jive Records), and Lalah Hathaway about their musical and personal influences. The artists also revealed how life events have shaped their musical journey. I also filmed the artists performing their performing their music live and intercut these elements together. This created a compelling half-hour of television that still airs today and became one of the most successful shows on the network!

MTV NEWS

I worked at MTV News for over a year--and came at quite an exciting time! I started a few weeks before the VMAs and had a blast producing the Red Carpet Pre-show at Radio City Music Hall! I started there a few days before Sway did, so we both relied on each other to navigate our new MTV World! A new show called DFX (Direct Effect) was launching, and Sway would be doing the live news breaks in the same way they were already done on TRL. My responsiblities at MTV News were vast. As the Coordinating Producer there, each day I had to determine what was newsworthy and relevant for the audiences of DFX and TRL. I had to approve the scripts leading into the story and approve the packages being produced--making sure they were accurate and visually appealing. Then each day at 3:00 I would prep our talent for the live TRL news. Either John Norris, Sway, Suchin Pak, Gideon or Iann Robinson would deliver the news around a group of screaming kids while I produced in the control room! There was also a fight for time between the TRL staff and News...It was quite a battle! But we never had a battle on DFX where the hip hop news was one of the favorites of the show! Sway would get out there and hype the crowd! The team usually consisted of myself as producer, Elon Johnson as writer and Sway as host. We always had tons of stories, from the beef between DMX and Ja Rule, the controversy surrounding an Outkast lyric, to the hottest new mixtapes news.But nothing compared to the frenzy created when Puffy and Shyne were put on trial for MURDER!!!! This spawned from an incident that took place at a NY nightclub when Puffy was dating J.Lo and trying to promote his new protege, Shyne and an altercation broke out.From day one, we covered that trial and updated audiences on daily testimonies in the courthouse. We went to the courts and did live feeds when the case went to jury deliberations, and were there when Shyne was convicted and Puffy was acquitted on all charges! In fact, it was Sway and myself who got the first exclusive interview with Puffy when he officially changed his name to the man we all know and love, P.Diddy! Talk about a comeback!!!At MTV, I also teamed up with Sway and Iann Robinson to produce a show called, "The Assignment: Keepin it Gangsta." This show examined the downside of glorifying the gangsta life in hip hop. From being harassed by cops--having your lyrics being used as evidence against you in legal cases to the effect this imagery has on the community. The Assignment was highly rated on the network, and included candid, sometimes humorous interviews with Snoop, Cam'Ron, and sometimes dangerous interviews with Birdman (his gun fell out of his pocket during the interview, but he was cool as hell), Snoop (I won't go into it) Damon Dash and other high profile rappers.

RAP CITY

My first gig at BET was for what remains as the longest running hip hop show on television--Rap City!! I was hired as an AP and got to work with legendary dancer Big Lez and crazy Joe Clair! I met and produced several shows with hip hop favorites like LL Cool J, Redman, Keith Murray, and EPMD...
But my most memorable episode was the first ever interview that Lil Kim had with BET! Her first album was coming out and I produced this show with her and Joe Clair hosting at a spa. She said some very interesting and telling things about how her self esteem had been marred in her child hood and she always felt ugly which was why she created her supersexy persona!I also produced a very interesting show for BET called Rap City Nihon which was hosted by this black dude named Alton who spoke Japanese!!! He interviewed folks like Busta Rhymes and Will Smith in Japanese for the show which aired in Japan and I had to not only produce it, but help in making sure everything was translated! Was sooo much fun!!!