Principal Photography is DONE!

It's done, I'm tired. I'll write more later. LOL

Plus 3

"Plus 3" is not that new group you heard on the radio, but they are still three talented young ladies who will be in our production. Appearing in non speaking roles are:



Gabi Hayes











Gabrielle Holland









and Yemaya Rich









These three young ladies auditioned for our film and even though we couldn't find a role for them we still invited them to participate in our production and are pleased that they will.

You can call her Miss Ross

Allow me to introduce herself

Her name is Andrea, RO to-the-S-S

We saw others but she was the best best
Naw I didn’t stutter she was just that good
If ya didn’t know her before now you wished you would

Ok enough of that. LOL. I’m just SO happy to find my star that I had to bust out in song, or rap as it were, like some musical or something. Yes the open was an homage to Jay-Z (My Name is Hov). I’m not a poet and didn’t know it. I don’t bust a rhyme all the time. I don’t always talk like Mother Goose or Dr. Suess. Ok I’m finished. Seriously.

I will go into more detail about how she was cast later (and it is a story!). Right now I want to praise this young actor and give her her just due.

Ladies and gentlemen, Andrea Ross

Insight on my creative process

I can now reveal why I named this character Aisha. Her parents are like my surrogate parents. They have always supported my artistic endeavors and I even named two of my main characters in my televised play Love, Rhythm, & Blues after them.

My cousin and I also share something else. We were the only kids, so far, in our generation to graduate from college. We often talked about school and most importantly getting a job after school. I even started my own personal rivalry. I say personal rivalry because I don’t think she knew that I wanted to beat her to the graduation finish line. She is younger than me, but we were in college at the same time because I didn’t start college until my early twenties. I just couldn’t let, wouldn’t let my “little cousin” graduate before me and I’m glad to say she didn’t. :-)

Anyway, that is just a little background on the relationship my cousin and I share and why I named the character after her. In tribute to her and her parents. When it came time to name the other younger cousins in the script I named them also after my other cousins. When it comes to naming characters in my scripts everything is often relative.

Cast Away 3

I don’t have a Cast Away joke for this entry, but fo’ real though they were getting tired. Ain’t nothing worst than a tired joke. Well there ARE a couple of things worst, but you get the idea. It’s called a colloquialism.

We had our auditions July 19th and from it we found a lot of fantastic actors. I have to thank Ms. Holley again for getting me several actors to audition whom we actually cast.

First up our little movie family is almost complete. We have cast the superfantastic Brittley Hardrick as the little sister DEE DEE.








As her cousins we have

Samara Caton as TIA









Billy D as DINO









Kendall Forbes as EJ







Donald Barnett as COUSIN WILL







Marcella Price as COUSIN ANGELA











Playing her Aunt is Rosita Matthews as AUNT DINA









Playing GABRIEL we have Omar Bah








Playing GABRIEL’S WIFE is Cynthia Forbes (yes Kendall’s mother)







Insight on my creative process




The characters of the younger cousins are named after my actual cousins Tia, Dante (nickname Dino) and Everette Jr…EJ. The older cousins I kind of picked out of the sky. Cousin Will might have been named after Will Smith, but I don’t remember. If you’re a fan of Will Smith I SURE DID name the character after him. :-)

I named Aunt Dina after my...get this…Aunt Dina. (I also named a character after her before in my televised play Down With The King ). Gabriel I picked out of the sky and I thought it sounded slightly uppity. Aloisius? Too uppity.

Dee Dee is the one character I kind of named after myself. My full name is Donald Dankwa Brooks or D.D. Brooks, but I’ve never been called that and never want to be called that. D.D. sounds like a girl’s name to me hence…Dee Dee.

Other characters I’ve written named after myself? Danika, a variation on Dankwa one of the main characters from my televised play Love, Rhythm, & Blues, Daniel Braxton a variation on Donald Brooks one of the main characters of another televised play Without A Doubt and so forth. Does that make me narcissistic? Well it’s not like I’ve talked about my past accomplishments and the great stuff I’ve written…I just hyperlinked them. :-)

Previously on Part Blog, Part News:
Cast Away
Cast Away 2 or How I Met Ms. Holley