Watch: Writer of ‘The Blackening’ takes over CultureCon LA

Dewayne Perkins takes a new path to creating stories for Black audiences to enjoy

CultureCon LA was a experience of a lifetime! For the writer of the recently released film, “The Blackening” it was the greatest achievement for Dewayne Perkins. The CultureCon weekend in LA lead the way for eccentric takeaways, meaningful guidance, and just great event with other Black entrepreneurs while enjoying sunny Los Angeles and live music. Perkins discusses creating, “The Blackening” and what that means as a Black LGBTQ man with theGrio’s James Gilmore.

“The following is a transcript of that conversation.”

Gilmore: [00:00:26] All right, so the writer of The Blackening. So we really don’t see too many stories, you know, written by us and, you know, starring a director by us for our audience, for us. Like, what made you get into this? [00:00:37][11.3]

Perkins: [00:00:38] I just loved I was a writer in Chicago. I was doing comedy writing sketch. Then, you know, I wrote a sketch that went viral. And Tracy Oliver’s, I write years later at the beginning of theaters right now. [00:00:50][11.5]

Gilmore: [00:00:52] So, yeah. So. Do you see yourself going a little deeper in this industry, writing more things, more apps, maybe directing this? What do you think? Where where are we going from here? [00:01:01][9.1]

Perkins: [00:01:02] Oh, yeah, I’m. I’m taking over Hollywood. That’s the next step. You know, I’m done writing now. People are seeing me as an actor. I’ve always been acting, but, you know, as a queer black man, the opportunities are not plentiful. So I had to, you know, write a whole last movie to be lead in one. But now that that’s real, I’m not stopping. Well, they open up the door now that me and I’m a people’s end. [00:01:23][21.4]

Gilmore: [00:01:24] Here we go. So moving forward, if you see other, you know, people in the queer community that say, Hey, I want to write, I want to direct, you know, I want to write something. What would you tell those people? Like, what would you tell them? What’s the next step? Give them a little motivation. [00:01:37][12.8]

Perkins: [00:01:37] Okay. I would tell them to do it. Like writing doesn’t start until you do it. You need pen to paper, fingers the keys, and you learn the best by doing it in real time. And then never. What’s the word? Never diminishing your voice because you think you’re writing with somebody wants to see because you are you’re you are the only you. So nobody can do what you can do. So you can do that the best for sure. That’s something you can’t write. [00:02:06][28.3]

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