Interview (Part 1): Murder Ink

My interview with Brandon Broussard, Hudson Obayuwana, and Jana Savage, the writing team behind the 2021 Black List script “Homecoming.”

Murder Ink consists of three writers (Brandon Broussard, Hudson Obayuwana, and Jana Savage) who wrote the comedy feature script “Homecoming” which not only landed on the 2021 Black List, but also sold as a spec script to Lionsgate in January of this year. Recently, I had the opportunity to talk with the trio about their backgrounds, the inspiration and writing of “Homecoming,” and where their careers have gone after making the annual Black List.

Today in Part 1 of of a 6-part series to run each day through Sunday, Brandon, Hudson, and Jana talk about how they got into screenwriting, got together as a creative team, and where the name Murder Ink came from.

Scott Myers: I’m here with Murder Ink, three writers who wrote “Homecoming,” a 2021 Black List script. Let’s dig down into each of your backgrounds. Since the script takes place at Howard University, maybe one way to do that, we’d look at each of your respective educational backgrounds.

Brandon, you went to Howard, then you got a fellowship at USC?

Brandon Broussard: I did.

Scott: How did you get interested in the writing for film and TV?

Brandon: I went to undergrad at Howard studied political science after that. I went down to Houston to work for my family. After I got fired by my family, I had a very serious conversation with my mom about the direction of my life. We decided that I needed to do something I really love.

I found screenwriting to be something that I really was drawn to. I went back to Howard for grad school for screenwriting. I knew from my very first course that that was what I was intended to do.

The first night, I wrote 30 pages. I was like, “Oh, yeah, this just feels like what I’m supposed to do.” Cut to, I ended up making a feature film while I was in the program that I ended up putting in a bunch of film festivals.

That’s how I met Hudson. He was actually one of the four lead actors amongst them. We’ve won a bunch of awards, and yeah, seeing the audience react to it, I was like, “Yeah, I’m on the right path.”

Scott: Hudson, you went to Howard as well. That’s where evidently you and Brandon met. Your background is in film production and theater arts, including acting?

Hudson Obayuwana: Yeah, initially. I’m from LA originally. I went to junior high and high school in St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. When I was here in LA, my mother worked in and I grew up and around the arts. My mother was the box office and ticket manager for UCLA at Pauley Pavilion. She was the ticket manager at the Hollywood Bowl.

I was a young kid backstage at plays and concerts and meeting people. I was always exposed to the arts. That trend continued when we moved down to the Virgin Islands when I was in junior high. She managed the box office again at the local amphitheater at the university down there. My very first job, I was working on a stage crew building sets, running light shows, and stuff like that. When it came time to decide what I wanted to do as a major, I was just like, “Man, this is what I love, what I’ve been around,” but I wanted to act. I came to Howard as an acting major.

I realized the theater program at Howard is very intense. You’re taking dance, stage makeup, play, movement, all these things that I was completely not interested in.

Jana Savage: Acting like a cat.

[laughter]

Hudson: Yeah, pretending to be. I remember I had a professor, she had us folding sheets. She was like, “I don’t believe you.” I was like, “That’s because I’m not holding any sheets, lady. This ain’t for me.”

[laughter]

Hudson: A friend who was a couple years older, a good friend of ours, Logan Coles, who was a writing and producing partner with Chadwick Boseman, he was there at the same time. He was a mentor and advised me, “Man, it seems like you should go down to the school of communications,” which I did. I was able to still keep my acting credits.

I knew that film and TV was more where I wanted to be. I moved down there and saw flyers for an audition for this male version of “Sex and the City.” I auditioned. Mr. Broussard cast me. That was the start of our journey. I came out to LA, also thinking that there was going to be big check waiting for me. It was a PA check. [laughs] That’s how we got started.

Then, Brandon moved out here. It was around the time from “The Dave Chappelle’s Show.” People were starting to put their own original content on YouTube. There was “Lonely Island” and “Awkward Black Girl,” which Issa Rae obviously turned into “Insecure.”

We thought we would fill that void and started a sketch comedy show. That was the beginning where we were writing, producing and directing our own stuff. That was my entrée into like, “Man, I want to do this writing thing.”

Jana: We found out very quickly that Dave Chappelle was a big part of that void.

[laughter]

Jana: Nobody bought that show.

Hudson: We thought we were going to be the next Chappelle Show, but without him we just had a show.

Jana: We were young and hungry.

Scott: Was this “Purple Stuff TV?”

Brandon: Yes.

Scott: I watched a couple of those videos, not quite Chappelle.

Brandon: Oh my gosh.

Jana: No.

[laughter]

Hudson: Not quite.

Scott: Jana, how about you? You might have the most circuitous route, Boston University, Economics and Spanish?

Jana: Yeah. I grew up in Maine. I always, in my head, wanted to be an actor but never did anything about it. My mom, actually, she’s a choreographer and a dance teacher. She would do regional theater. She never let me be in her plays, A, because I couldn’t sing, and B, because the rehearsals were at night. And with school and everything it would be too much. That didn’t stop me from pretending that I was an actor in my daydreams, though. But as I got older I was like, “Well, that’s kind of silly. People from Bangor, Maine, don’t become actors.”

But I wanted to explore, go somewhere. I went to Boston. That was the closest city. I needed a major, so I ironically picked the major I knew I wouldn’t have to write any papers for, Economics. I loved Spanish, so I minored in it. That backfired because once a week, I’d have to write a paper, but in Spanish.

After my freshman year in college, some of my friends from high school, somehow, they raised like 100 grand to shoot a film. I got a small part in it and I was like, “I’m hooked.” I was afraid to tell anyone that I wanted to be an actor. I don’t know why. I’m pretty sure everybody was like, “Yeah, that makes sense. You’re loud, and you like attention.”

[laughter]

Jana: I secretly started taking acting classes that I paid way too much for in Boston. Then BU was just starting a program. It was almost like an exchange program, but instead of out of the country, it was LA. We were one of the first years that it was happening.

I was in the School of Arts and Sciences, and this was the School of Communications. I went in and I was like, “Can I come?” They were like, “I guess.” Everybody else there was communications and I wanted to be an actor, but I had some really cool internships. I interned on “The West Wing” and “Malcolm in the Middle.” I was like, “OK, I have to be here.”

I was only a junior at the time, but I was luckily ahead in credits. I went back and graduated in three years so I could come back to LA. I was focused solely on acting for, let’s see, the first, I don’t know, eight years I was here.

Then I ended up auditioning for Purple Stuff. They didn’t cast me because they’re jerks. But I had to write my own jokes for my audition and they ended up asking me to come write with them.

I got my revenge because I was like, “Yeah, I’m really good writer.” Then I was like, “No, you have to teach me.”

Hudson: She turned in her first script in Microsoft Word.

Scott: In Spanish.

Jana: In Spanish. I’m going to impress them.

Hudson: Got all the tabs right. She got the margins right…

Scott: Let’s talk about Murder Ink. The legend is that the name came about because you’d written a script and someone said, “Well, you killed that script.” True? False? What’s the story on Murder Ink?

Jana: It’s actually because Ja Rule used to be our fourth member.

[laughter]

Jana: Then the Fyre Festival happened, and we were like, “We can’t have that.”

Brandon: We’re like, “Get out of here. Get out of here.” The bread lunches were Jana’s idea.

[laughter]

We were writing after Purple Stuff. Occasionally, we’d get little gigs. They paid money for six weeks or something to try to write something for YouTube or whatever. What we were finding is that we had the best synergy, because the three of us would stay after everybody else had left and rewrite all the scripts together. I was still writing stuff on my own. I’d written a pilot that got optioned by a production company.

Then they asked, “Hey, we have this feature that we’re trying to shoot. We’re going to shoot it in about a month, but it needs to be written. The caveat is that, it has to be rewritten in 10 days.” I’m like, “I don’t think I could give you something of any kind of quality in 10 days, but I do have two friends that I work with that we write in together sometimes. TV‑room style, we could probably give you something you would like.”

We went off and rewrote the script at the time and turned it back in, in 10 days. We wanted to celebrate but it was late on a Friday night and all we had in the fridge was some cheap beer and flat champagne. We drank that.

At the time we said, “Hey, we should call ourselves cheap beer and flat champagne.” The executive called the next day and was like, “Man, you guys murdered that script or killed that script.” We’re like, “Oh, I think that’s a better name, Murder Ink.” Now we still have a tradition.

Jana: We do have a tradition.

Brandon: Whenever we finish a script, we do drink cheap beer and flat champagne, but that’s not our name.

Scott: No.

Brandon: That was how the Murder Ink was born.

Scott: That’s a great name for a country song. [sings] Cheap beer and flat champagne.

[laughter]

Tomorrow in Part 2, the three writers reveal the inspiration for “Homecoming” and how they developed the project.

Murder Ink is repped by APA.

Twitter: @BrandonQreative, @HuddyRozay, @TheSavageJana.

Instagram: @murderink_llc.

For my interviews with dozens of other Black List writers, go here.