Cocktails with Yvonna

Last year I proudly blogged about Octavia Spencer ’s Supporting Actress Oscar win for “The Help” . Happily this is the year of milestones and   giving major props to the woman of color actresses on film in 2012. Making history as the youngest Academy Award nominee newcomer Quvenzhane Wallis has charmed audiences and critics as “Hushpuppy” in “Beast of the Southern Wild”.   At 12 years old actress Amandla Sternberg is a seasoned veteran of television and film.   Amandla broke the color barrier winning the role of “Rue” in “The Hunger Games” . Starring as the lovely “Bronhilda” in “Django Unchained ”, Kerry Washington turned a milestone with the lead in the Shonda Rhimes’ ABC hit show, “Scandal” as the first African American actress to star in a television series in 39 years.     Emayatzy Corinealdi’s feature film debut in “Middle of Nowhere” earned her a Gotham Award for Breakthrough Actor and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead . Honored by Women In Fil

   The first black model to grace the cover of British Vogue was Donyale Luna in 1966.  Donyale went on to star in movies directed by Otto Preminger, Federico Fellini and Andy Warhol, before the end of her short tumultuous life.   The cover of Vogue is the pinnacle of any model’s career. The honor can lead to high-end fashion and beauty contracts, film, TV and commercial roles and entrepreneurial enterprises.  The first African American model on the cover of American Vogue was Beverly Johnson.  Her career achievements include film and TV roles, two beauty books and a successful hair product line.  Beverly is the star of a reality show on OWN “Beverly’s Full House” .  real estate entrepreneur . The second African American model to score a Vogue cover was Peggy Dillard. Peggy is now a successfulHer Harlem salon, Turning Heads was on the vanguard of the natural hair movement.  Somalian beauty Iman is also a multi hyphenate talent. Iman is an actress, author and CEO

Hopefully gone are the days when filmmakers raised funds for their films by any means necessary: medical experiments (“El Mariachi”, Robert Rodriguez), credit cards (“Hollywood Shuffle”, Robert Townsend) and family and friends (“Kissing Jessica Stein”, Jennifer Westfeldt and Heather Juergensen ). Now crowdfunding platforms are the way to finance film projects through individuals on the web.  There are two types of crowd funding platforms for film; equity investment and donations. President Obama signed the JoBs (Jumpstart Our Business Startups) Act containing provisions for filmmaker’s to raise up to a million dollars in equity on the internet. But according to   Filmmaker Magazine , the crowd funding platforms created for equity film investment still has a few kinks to work out.   The most lucrative crowd funding platforms are through established web companies Kickstarter , IndieGogo and newcomer Seed & Spark enabling indie filmmakers to raise funds through donati