Kenny Blank

[jamesanthony]

Whatever happened to this actor who played Michael? I assume that like the character he left the series to get an education but he hasn't been seen around much since 1997. In the credits for the years he's not in I believe he was listed as some sort of musical contributor or some such thing. Once he left this series he stayed gone. He didn't return for the episode where Robert Townsend got shot or the finale (the finale is just about the only episode from this series that I dislike, it was very weak).

[isiahthomas]

Who cares what happened to Kenny Blank. I didn't like his character anyway. I don't recall Robert Townsend gettin killed on the season finale of Parent Hood. The Five Heartbeats movie was on BET last Friday. I love watching that movie over & over.

[Kamasu]

Kenny Blank, now is known as Kenn Michael. He is a filmmaker and has directed several films. He is also known for computer generated effects.

[vashti1999]

http://www.3blacquechix.com/production.html

Classical pianist, filmmaker, writer, producer, and actor Kenn Michael – the artist formally known as Kenny Blank – knew at the age of two that he was destined for the entertainment business. By the time he was four, he was filming and scoring his own movies and writing jingles for television commercials. And at twelve, he became the youngest member of the Black Filmmakers' Foundation, founded by Warrington Hudlin. While filming BOOMERANG starring Eddie Murphy, Warrington and Reginald Hudlin recognized Kenn’s incredible filmmaking skills and made him the apprentice director for the movie. He considers the lessons he learned from this experience to be invaluable. After landing the role of Michael Peterson in the popular WB series, “The Parent ‘Hood,” Kenn -- while still a teenager -- also scored 50 episodes of the long-running sitcom.

Kenn's digital short films have won acclaim around the world for their provocative sci-fi thriller concepts, technical prowess and music. A much sought-after digital film consultant, he was a key speaker on the digital filmmaking panels at recent the Urbanworld and Acapulco Black Film festivals. Other projects include the now legendary NSYNC performance at the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, for which he directed, edited and conceptualized the technology for the performance, utilizing 5 plasma screens seamlessly to interact with NSYNC and the choreography. Kid Rock called it technological genius! Kenn also directed and edited all the visual elements and films for NSYNC's Pop Odyssey World Tour, with his work projected during the show on the largest concert screen in the world -- 40 by 27 feet!!!

Most recently, Kenn completed post-production on his third feature for Image Entertainment -- Ganked, starring Kel Mitchell and Katt Williams. With his multimedia company, CODEKRAFT, Kenn is devoted to developing and helming projects to bring Hollywood into the next millennium technologically conceptually and stylistically!

[TMC]

https://www.lipstickalley.com/thread...80%9D.1462014/

KENN MICHAEL, 40


BRINSON+BANKS FOR THE UNDEFEATED

Born: New York

Throwback: The Parent ‘Hood, Freaks and Geeks

Currently working on: Artificial intelligence software project

I loved being in front of the camera. I did Reading Rainbow twice, and one of the producers said to my parents, “He’s really good. This seems like something you guys might want to pursue.” I thank my mom, Lola, for my career, because she put in a lot of work.

The first national spot I booked was a commercial for Bubble Yum in 1990. I was around 12, and the role for that ad was originally not created for a black kid but a white character named Milo, the Mathematical Genius. I guess white kids were only allowed to be intelligent, but the agent I had was incredible. She was like, “Oh, no. We’re going to send Kenn there because they don’t know what they want. And he can do it.” I nailed it.

I always played the smart kid in a lot of crossover roles. And then I hit this rut that was typical with being a black actor where the majority of the roles were the street kid, the drug dealer or the bad kid. All the auditions were the same, and I was bummed, so around 1992 I was an apprentice director on the film Boomerang, shadowing the Hudlin Brothers. I got the chance to watch Eddie Murphy work. I developed a bit of a rapport with him. Eddie noticed I was a little out of sorts.

Hours later, he asked me to see him on his bus. I was excited! I told him what I was experiencing in the television audition game and he gave me this pep talk, like, “Dude, I know. But you have to keep on trucking. Your excellence will shine no matter what you do.” I ended up getting an actual part in Boomerang.

But then you go from being on a big budget film that showed blacks in a nuanced, positive light and back to the politics of TV. I remember a meeting I had with Darren Star, who was the head of Aaron Spelling’s development company. I walked into this huge office in Beverly Hills. They were interested in creating a show for me, so Darren walks in, puts his feet up on the table and he says, “You may know some of our series, like Beverly Hills, 90210 and Melrose Place …” He had this very arrogant way about him. So I said, “Yeah, I’ve seen those shows, but I don’t really watch them because I don’t see anybody who looks like me.” [A] phrase you heard a lot back in those days [was] … “Oh, we don’t know how to write for black characters.”

Being on the show The Parent ’Hood was an interesting situation. I was on a black series with Robert Townsend, who was the show’s creator and executive producer. There was diversity, and it was great at times, but then my character started to get painted in a corner. He was viewed as this super positive black male character … smart and into music. I was written off the show. The character they replaced me with was this boy who was written as a troubled, streetwise kid. It wasn’t just the white shows that insisted I play the hoodlum. That was an eye-opener.

When I did Freaks and Geeks, nobody knew anything about it. Judd Apatow was not a huge name at that point, so for me it was just another audition. I was just happy to be on a show where the writing was really funny. We know that Apatow’s projects are mostly white. In hindsight, yeah, it would have been great … for them to have more characters of color.

I got tired of the politics of auditioning for roles. I’d always been directing my own short films before I got my first official directing gig. I was doing film festivals and some projects on the digital side of filmmaking before anybody was talking about it, because the picture quality wasn’t of quality back then. I was also doing a lot of voiceover work for video games and cartoons. I ended up directing BET’s Let’s Stay Together. That was my multicam, sitcom, directorial thing. It was a lot of fun. Doing voice work for video games has been a lot of fun because you get to play all these crazy characters. I do a really great German accent. (Michael is an in-demand video game voice actor. He has appeared in the Saints Row series and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.)

I’ve started this next phase of my journey. I’ve been building a software project that is dealing with sound, healing, and sacred numbers and frequencies. My thing is bringing spirituality, technology and science together. Artificial intelligence is upon us. We need to make sure that we are imbuing things into A.I. that we would want.