High school and college students in Baltimore were treated to a free workshop at Frederick Douglass High School March 23 where they heard from Hollywood heavy-hitters on how to make it in the entertainment industry.
Billed as the “Hollywood Come Up,” the workshop featured veterans in the business who offered a “blueprint” on how Baltimore youth could make their way up from their neighborhoods to a career in Hollywood.
Leading the seminar was acclaimed director, screenwriter and producer John Singleton, of Boyz n the Hood fame. The film garnered him an Academy Award nomination for Best Director in 1991. Other films under his belt include: Poetic Justice (1993), Higher Learning (1995), Rosewood (1997), Shaft (2000), Baby Boy (2001) and Four Brothers (2005). He also produced Hustle & Flow, the hip-hop rags-to-riches story of a Memphis pimp played by Terrence Howard which earned a Best Actor nomination for Howard in the 2005 Academy Awards and won the Oscar for Best Original Song for Three 6 Mafia’s song “It’s Hard out Here for a Pimp.”