Before I reflex, my heart goes out to everyone that was negatively impacted by Covid, experienced a loss, financial hardship, and/or endured racial injustice. For many, 2020 will be remembered as a year of pain and suffering. My condolences to all that had a rough year.
2020's impact on my life, resulted in restoration and opportunity. Early on, I listened in on a radio show discussing great outcomes from past pandemics. I learned a lot of people came out millionaires because of new opportunities that sprung up and by playing their cards right. When I heard that, my mind was set. At that moment, I decided that I'm going to come out of this pandemic on the right side of success.
The lockdowns and quarantines all worked in my favor. Honestly, not much changed with my daily operation. The biggest change was no more basketball and a halt to tennis for a while. Aside from that, quarantine is pretty much my normal lifestyle.
Then there's the case of my talent agent disappearing. Literally, they vanished. Yet, I embraced the disappearance as a gift. I've had an agent two days after arriving in LA in 2010, up until now. To be honest, I couldn't be happier. I spent most of the last 9 plus years auditioning with very little results. I've had big auditions but never booked the life changing ones. I would've never dropped my agent by choice but I'm not complaining that they're gone. Their departure is a reward that I didn't know I needed so much.
So... It's a once in a century pandemic. The world is on lock. My agent no longer exists. I got nothing to audition for (yeah!), and I can't play basketball. What in the world did I do with all my time? Actually, a lot. I've probably learned the most this year than any other previous year. There's a chance I might have even accomplished more this year than any other year in the last decade. My 2020 started strong and ended with restored hope and restoration.
In imperfect chronologic order, I'm going to list some of my most memorable highlights for 2020.
* The Motown Maurice Show 10 Year Reunion in Tampa, FL.
* Wrote 2 TV pilots (One pilot placed as a semi-finalist in BET's Project CR8 contest).
* Rewrites. Lots of screenplay rewrites.
* Spent the first 3 months of the quarantine with Atarah, living the good life. It was good to give the garage a break. After that, we spend time on and on together and it was a great balance. During our time together, I was treated like a king.
* Animal Crossing New Horizons: That game took over my life for a while. Hustling turnips on SundaysMondays and later premiering a new late night talk show on my island.
* Motown Maurice Pandemonium challenge: October to December, twice a week, I put out series of new videos from ASMR and interviews via Animal Crossing (No Time Traveling & Island Inspection Tours).
* Invested in a microphone, video capture card, a webcam, a ring-light, and a few other things for my Youtube experiments.
* My auto-biographical screenplay received honorable mention in ISA's Virtual Pitch Fest.
* Produced a series of Youtube commercials promoting my two channels. Some of those ideas I've had for a while. This situation presented itself as the best chance to make it happen.
* Invested in a new computer. A very important piece of the puzzle brewing.
* Learned OBS.
* Produced and directed a live Webinton with Aaron's House.
* Starting investing in Stocks.
* Stimulus check. Right on.
* Applied for unemployment for the first time. As a result, lost my EBT for the first time in 9 years but I'm not complaining. It's a good change.
* Joined a Sou-Sou. Even produced a video for the organization.
* Celebrated 10 years in LA.
* Built-up my video game community on Discord along with bi-weekly Brawlhalla tournaments.
* Got back into jogging, 1.4 miles once a week for a while and bested my time in the end.
* Tennis. There were weeks I didn't play but overall played a lot and made improvements in my game.
* Appeared on The Price Is Right with a cool outcome.
* Shot an episode of Get A Clue with my team, Atarah and Kori. Even got invited back but the second wave of Covid canceled plans for everybody.
* Dragon Soldiers released. One of the movies I worked on in Colorado in 2019
* In December, I surprisingly got received word about a contract renewal/buyout from an old project.
* Enjoyed a lot of TV shows and movies.
* Last but certainly not least, my most glorious highlight, the restoration of The Late Night Experiment. Inquiry about my beloved web series came in September, that fell through but I didn't falter. My inside connect pointed me in the right direction, leading me on a remastering odyssey to my program distributed.
I didn't know the importance of color correction or sound grading when I began my series in 2012. Over time, I often glanced at the thought of what a better version would be like. Over time, my series sparked interest with companies but they never explained why they passed. Now, I have the knowledge and tools to elevate my series so it can live on bigger platforms. This will allow my story to be shared with the world like never before.
Restoration of my series began in 2020 and will come to completion in January 2021. After that, I'm embarking on another remastering journey. While preparing this remaster, I realized, I also have a docuseries to present. Content is king and I have it. I've always had it but just not using it at its maximum potential.
I'll end this post, grateful for the blessings and opportunities presented in 2020, and enter 2021 elevated, knowing that my story is alive, strong, and will soon be available to a much larger audience. It all lines up with the master plan, one mastered story at a time.
As the quest continues...
The future of Late Night
Motown Maurice
