by Jessica Jones
Times Writer
Some people are fortunate enough to do what they love and get paid for it. For Blaise Brooks, a comedian and actress based in Los Angeles, her passion became her job when she decided to begin performing clean comedy routines and eventually signed a deal with a distribution company for her film, “Clean Comedy on Dirty Sunset.”
Produced, written and directed by Brooks, her debut DVD, to be released October of this year, “Clean Comedy on Dirty Sunset,” is an innovative film that mixes clean standup comedy with skits, a concept that has never been done. Based on the often hypocritical nature of some church-goers, the film follows what happens when two pastors ask a church member to go out and find two true believers. Along the way, they run into four people, all played by Brooks herself, who tell them they are true believers, but whose actions show otherwise. The storyline is centered about each character’s relationship with God and the spiritual.
Brooks describes her characters in a way that would make anyone think he or she knows someone similar. For instance, there’s Sally Cherry, a character Brooks describes as a “homeless prayer warrior” who wanted to be an entertainer but could never make it. Instead, she prays for others to help them fulfill their dreams, but “can never seem to pray the right kind of prayer for them” because of her bitterness over her failure.
Other characters include Coretta Gin, a hopeful country music star with no talent, Urthwynda Fyre, a false prophet and healer and all around scam artist, and Imunique Jenkins, ‘‘an All-American ghetto girl fresh out of jail,” who renounced her old life in prison, but goes back to her sinful ways after her release.
It was a long road to get the film written, produced and picked up by a distribution company. Brooks’ journey toward a career in the entertainment business began when she picked up and moved from Kansas City, Mo. to Los Angeles, Calif. where she began studying drama.
“In February of 2004 I packed my car with my clothes, my Mother and two year old daughter and drove to California,” Brooks said. “My Mother was with me to help take care of my daughter while I drove, but she was also there because she knew that my passion was performing and she supported my decision to pursue a career in the entertainment industry.”
Brooks was an accounting manager at CBS when she realized that just making money wasn’t satisfying and working at a television station fueled her desire for a career in entertainment. She eventually left her unfulfilling job as an accountant in favor of something she felt was her passion, but she also left the security and support of the family she’d left behind in Kansas City, where she was born and raised.
“My Mother was the only one that wholeheartedly supported my decision to pursue acting,” she said. “The rest of my family thought it was a long shot, and that I should not have taken my daughter away from the life that we had. They supported me, but not my dream of becoming an entertainer.”
Her family’s concern wasn’t unfounded; the entertainment industry has a reputation for creating struggling artists and, after leaving a job that provided steady income to chase a dream that led to occasional work here and there, Brooks wasn’t exempt. Add to that the high cost of living in Los Angeles.
“When I arrived in Los Angeles, I had about $3,000 and within six weeks it was gone,” she said. “Gasoline, food, rent, and everything else are double and sometimes triple the cost that it was in Kansas City, Mo. My first job was working as a non-union background actor at minimum wage. I was so happy to be on a set, but once I received that $47 check, I wanted to get in my car and go back to Missouri. I also remember a day when my daughter asked for a bag of chips, and I didn’t have a dollar to get them. I hit some very hard times, but I made it through. When God has a plan for your life, even the lack of money won’t get in the way.”
Brooks was determined make herself a success, not only for her own satisfaction, but for her daughter’s financial security and to set an example her daughter would be proud to follow.
“I feel obligated every day to be successful for my daughter,” Brooks said. “I took her from a community of close knit family members and have surrounded her with people that I associate with, and for that I feel a little guilt over doing that to her. On the other hand, I know she is not a small town girl, and I want her to have the courage to step out and find her way in this world, and I don’t want her to stay in her comfort zone because it is the easy thing to do. I want her to have the strength to follow her dreams. My obligation as a mother is to provide the best life possible for her, and I want the decision that I made to pursue an acting career, to help give her the life that she can be proud of and happy with.”
In spite of the financial difficulties she faced, she was able to have experiences that she couldn’t have had anywhere else, let alone at home in Kansas City.
“I was able to work on various sets as a background actor and that afforded me the opportunity to see celebrities up close and personal,” Brooks said. “I would not have been able to do that in Kansas City. I also did bookkeeping for different production companies, and I was able to go to some Hollywood parties, and red carpet events with big name super stars. Kansas City, Mo. is a great place to raise a family, and it’s a great place to find a career and settle down. But the type of career that I was trying to have, I would not be able to accomplish my entertainment industry goals in Kansas City, Mo.”
After having a few roles as an extra, Brooks thought to give comedy a try. She’d always had a talent for making people laugh, and she was already in show business, so the leap from actor to comedian wasn’t unreasonable. She began doing shows at comedy clubs, and her material was what she called “raunchy… the kind of crazy girl talk you have with the closest of friends.”
Now Brooks only does what she calls clean comedy; Brooks credits her daughter for the decision.
“My daughter came home one day and wanted to go on YouTube to look up a video, and that scared me, because I knew that my raunchy material was out there and I did not want her to ever see it or hear it,” Brooks said. “I knew then that I had to make a change, but I wasn’t sure how to make the crowd laugh without putting the raunchiness in my joke set. But I knew I couldn’t continue to do the same types of jokes either.
But her daughter wasn’t the only reason for changing her comedy routines. A church member took issue with the fact that she did raunchy comedy, but claimed to be a Christian. It had been a year since Brooks had done a raunchy comedy set, and she assured the church member that those jokes were no longer part of her routine.
Deciding to do clean comedy was only the first step; the second would be to actually perform the material and get the same reaction she’d gotten from risqué jokes. Her first chance came when she performed at The Underground Church.
“I did my clean comedy joke set and the crowd loved it,” she said. “After I was asked to perform at the Word in Motion dance festival, and that huge room of people laughed, and some laughed until they cried, and that is when I knew that I had made the right choice to change my joke set to clean comedy.”
Despite finding the affirmation of her talent in the laughter of audiences, Brooks discovered that she wasn’t getting as much work as she’d had in the past with her adult routine, something she attributes to clubs not being eager to invite clean comedians to the stage.
“My experience has been that you get fewer calls to work when your comedy is clean,” she said. “There is Bill Cosby, Sinbad, and a few other male clean comics that have made a mark in the industry, but there has yet to be an African American clean comic that has made that kind of a mark on the entertainment industry. There are female clean comics that have made a name on the church circuit, but not in Hollywood.”
Stand-up comedy routines weren’t coming as often and neither were television and commercial roles. That and the frustration of seeing commercials on television that she never got called to audition for, in addition to a lack of notoriety off stage, sparked Brooks’ idea for a 30 minute performance DVD to promote herself. This self-promotion would ultimately lead to her DVD, “Clean Comedy on Dirty Sunset.” In the film, Brooks plays four different characters and also does a standup routine. The film gives Brooks an opportunity to combine both her skills as a comedian as well as her acting skills in one project.
“Once I decided to do the standup video, more ideas came to me, and I decided that if I wanted to let the world see me as an actress then I need to do some acting in the video, and that is why I incorporated the four characters,” Brooks said. “I asked every acting friend that I knew to be in the project, and most of them said yes.”
Brooks said she needed someone to direct the film, but no one would take her up on the offer. She decided that if she was going to write the material, she chose to do the directing, too.
It took about seven months from start to finish to complete the film. The filming was no trouble, but when it came time to find a home for the project, Brooks once again found herself frustrated with the picky entertainment industry.
“The biggest hurdle was getting distribution for a one of a kind film” she said. “Never before had anyone put standup and skits in a feature length film, and no one wanted to take a chance on it. Finances were my first big obstacle, but I think that is with any project or goal. The second was to obtain a distribution deal. My entire cast was amazing and no trouble at all. Once you have a product, the hard part is to get someone to believe in it as much as you do.”
Finding a distributor wasn’t difficult because the material wasn’t good; it was difficult because never before had there been a feature-length production that included standup comedy.
“I am the first African American clean comic who has ever gotten a distribution deal for her own project,” she said. “This film is the first of its kind, and has created a new genre in film. I believe that it was hard for anyone to grasp the idea of this working and/or selling. Because no one had ever done a film like this before, no one knew how to market it. No one could pinpoint a target audience, no one had anything to compare it to, and I believe that is what took me so long to get a distributor on board.
The roadblocks were many, but there were also blessings that assured Brooks that she was doing exactly what she was called to do.
“When I needed the last $2000, a company that I had done some contract work for loaned it to me,” she said. “My editor hung in there with me until the very end. My entire cast worked for deferred pay, my distributor is handling everything on his end. I landed a new agent because she liked my trailer to the film. I changed my title from actress to Producer/Director.”
After two years of not being able to hook a distributor, Brooks said she became so fearful that her work would look outdated, she actually considered giving up on her search, but just when she thought it was over, she had a breakthrough.
“I decided that I would do another round of e-mails to several distributors and for the first time two of them were interested. Well, the end of the story is that I have a worldwide DVD distribution deal.”
The relief of finally having a distributor was so great, that at times she couldn’t believe the payoff of her diligence and dedication to her calling.
“It was unbelievable,” Brooks said. “For several days, I would just sit and stare into space. I also would start crying tears of joy and relief at random moments. The main thing that I couldn’t do well enough was to thank God. I felt like the words coming out of my mouth did not describe how thankful, grateful, and humbled I was by the favor that He had just given me. I finally called the distributor to hear him say that this was real, and once we spoke, I took a few more days to give thanks, cry and stare into space.”
The process was long and sometimes discouraging, it taught her that persistence is rewarded with achievement.
“I have learned that success comes from hard work, perseverance, and faith that you can achieve the vision that is inside of you,” she said. “I also know that my faith in God is what helped me to persevere and believe that I could achieve whatever I put my mind to. I have learned that if the doors won’t open for you then you need to build your own doors to walk through.”
