THE HOLLYWOOD SHUFFLE AND BOOK NEWS

THE HOLLYWOOD SHUFFLE

I've been living in Los Angeles a long damn time now. It's a maddening town. Selling a screenplay isn't so much about having talent and a great script as it is about having the right connections. People will disagree with me, but that's the truth. So the next time you see a two hundred million dollar turd on the big screen, you'll know why. I get mad when I see books about screenwriting in Hollywood or lectures, where the speaker says, "all you have to do is write a great script." They're not telling people the whole truth. It helps to have a great script. But that's only the beginning.

That being said, anything is possible. I'm a pessimistic optimist. If I wasn't, I would have moved out of LA long ago. Then again, it is nearly 80 degrees outside with blue skies and sunshine.

Finally, now with an independent producer I'm working with on the Paramount lot, things are starting to look promising. We're out with a TV show. Things are slowly starting to fall into place. But, we spent much of last year pushing a boulder up a mountain.

So, as jaded as I am, I'm also hopeful. Maybe this will be the one. If not, I will keep on trying.

"THE BLACK ALBUM: A Hollywood Horror Story"

Amazon has begun promoting the book, I'm looking for publications that will review it, and I've also rewritten the original screenplay. It's scarier and darker, delving even more into the psyche of the characters and what they're going through. After being persuaded, I'm pursuing a reboot of the movie either as an indie or a small studio horror film. We're currently out to some investors.

"SPOOK: Confessions of a Psychic Spy" 

I've finished writing the book and handed it off to my editor a week ago. So far - she's halfway through the book - I've gotten rave reviews from her. She really enjoyed TBA (or at least she told me she did), but she said she likes "Spook" way more. In a way, I feel like "Spook" is my first novel. I wrote TBA in a breezy pop culture kind of fashion. I wrote "Spook" like a novel. I hope it is regarded as an important piece of literature. 

While the editor is going through the book, I'm now planning a photo shoot for the book cover. Whereas, I just slapped something together for TBA, I really want the book cover for "Spook" to be slick, iconic and eye-catching.

I am curious how it's going to be received. After-all, as an African American, I have a book coming out with the image of a Black man on the cover and the title Spook. Then again, this novel is supposed to spark lively debate and explore hard issues that we don't want to discuss. 

As bizarre as it sounds, I describe "Spook" as "12 Years a Slave" meets "James Bond." And if you think I'm jumping on the "12 Years" bandwagon, know this, I'm adapting this novel from a screenplay I wrote over three years ago. 

Anyway, that's all the updates for now. In a few weeks, I will be writing my first YA novel and my creative wheels are already spinning in that direction.

Sincerely,

Carlton Kenneth Holder

The Hell Board

Images courtesy of "The Black Album"

  

LIKE A BAT OUT OF BROOKLYN

So... I've changed the name of my blog. Whereas formerly it was just about my first novel I published "THE BLACK ALBUM: A Hollywood Horror Story," it will now be about my life in Hollywood, as well as, the new novels I am coming out with and my road to exposing them to an audience. 

I hope everyone enjoys this blog and finds it entertaining and informative. I've been in Hollywood a long time, first as a successful movie stuntman, then as a struggling writer.

I've made a lot of mistakes. But then again, who hasn't?

I've followed an unusual path. But at least it was my own. Would I change some things if I could go back? Of course I would. But you can never go home again.

Why the title "Like a Bat Out of Brooklyn?" Many of you who've been to New York in recent years probably think, Brooklyn is a really cool place. They have vegan restaurants, brownstones, hip upwardly mobile people, but the Brooklyn I grew up in wasn't like that. The Brooklyn I grew up in was a dark, dangerous place. When I think of Brooklyn, images of Walter Hill's iconic "THE WARRIORS" movie comes to mind. It was a world full of predators. 

I ran and fought my way out of Brooklyn. It made me tough. Gave me a thick enough skin to deal in Hollywood and not lose my mind. 

Like a bat out of Hell! Like a bat out of Brooklyn. Take your pick. 

AMAZON'S PROMOTION OF THE BLACK ALBUM

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THE BLACK ALBUM: A Hollywood Horror Story Carlton Kenneth Holder, Beauregard Freidkin   Price: $2.99       Pohon Setan. Ben Brown, Sara Dean   Price: $0.99       The Cold Room Jason LaVelle, Heather LaVelle   Price: $2.99       Evil Origins: A Horror & Dark Fantasy Collection J. Thorn   Price: $3.99

THE FREAK KING LIVES

I'm really pleased with all the good comments and interest I've received regarding Beauregard Freidkin AKA the Freak King, who wrote both the foreword and prologue to my debut novel "THE BLACK ALBUM: A Hollywood Horror Story."

You'll be happy to know he has written the foreword for my upcoming novel "SPOOK: Confessions of a Psychic Spy." In addition to that - hopefully before the end of 2014 - Beauregard Freidkin will be gracing the pages of his very own novel "MIDNITE REVIEW OF THE FREAK KING."

I believe it's going to be a big year for BROOKLYN APACHE PRESS. And remember...

THE REVOLUTION WILL BE DIGITIZED

The Demon Jeremy spews blood

Images courtesy of "The Black Album"

DIARY OF THE BLACK ALBUM # 6

October 5th

Everyone was really starting to get into the Halloween spirit on the film set. Since Halloween's my favorite holiday anyway - a whole month where I can watch horror movies and talk about them with everyone else without being labeled that guy who always talks about scary movies - I didn't need much prompting. Horror was in and I was at home. 

On location, in between scenes, we would play games like name your three favorite horror films. I would always sneak "Ed Wood" into my list even though it technically is not a horror film, but you've gotta love a movie about a guy who is obsessed with making bad horror films. 

Anyway, I'm detouring from my subject. 

It was night time and we were on the huge hill that ran along the side of my house. Houses were sprinkled around, then dense woods. On our shooting schedule for the night was the scene where the living dead emerge out of their graves in the backwoods bootleg cemetery LORD'S LANE.

One of our electric guys had a Gothic Marilyn Manson look and I intended to capitalize on it. He became my ZOMBIE NUMBER ONE. And all he had to do was let me bury him alive.

Now figuring out the logistics of how to bury someone alive without actually suffocating them, aren't as easy as they may seem. Since it was a pauper's grave site, there would be no coffin. Just a hole and a wooden cross.

Now I didn't want to cheat this with a funky camera angle and a series of shots. I wanted the audience to see him explode up out of the dirt all in one take. So, in order for our Zombie to breathe and not have his make-up ruined, we covered him with a thin plastic sheet. Then we buried him.

My FX man fogged up the surrounding woods with our trusty fog machine and then it was ACTION! We got the shot in the first take and I was quite happy... until my Zombie Number One keeled over and stopped breathing.

Apparently he had inhaled quite a bit of dirt. After a few minutes of retching, however, he was fine. 

It was all in a night's work.

TO BE CONTINUED

Zombie Number One rising from a grave in Lords Lane

Images courtesy of "The Black Album"