It’s not like Allen Maldonado doesn’t have enough jobs.
He’s churning out hilarity as a writer on the STARZ comedy series “Survivors Remorse,” which just premiered its fourth season.
He has a recurring role on ABC’s “Black-ish” and a starring role opposite Tracy Morgan in the forthcoming TBS comedy “The Last O.G.”.
Maldonado also has a recording company, a production company, a t-shirt line and a foundation.
Now he’s adding tech entrepreneur to his resume.
His app, “Everybody Digital,” launches on October 3 on the Apple Store with the aim of becoming “the Netflix of short films.”
According to Maldonado, the app will feature a variety of digital short media — ranging from dramatic films to comedy specials — running no longer than 20 minutes.
He said the idea was born out of “heartbreak.”
“When you make a short film, you have basically 12 to 15 months of life being that the film festival circuit only allows you to run it for that time period,” Maldonado told CNN. “I had a film that won countless awards, had great notoriety and after that 12-to-15-month run, it was over.”
His 2012 short film, “One Decision Away,” about a college graduate struggling in a rough neighborhood with his wife and child, was a labor of love for Maldonado who wrote, starred in and directed the project.
And while short film festivals are great and did well by Maldonado, he said, they are often attended by those already in the industry. Maldonado sought a way to get such content to a wider audience.
“The average consumer never gets the opportunity to even see some of these spectacular short films,” he said. “Back in the day, before trailers took over, the outlet [for short] films would be before movies.”
He said he kicked the idea around a bit before buckling down to develop the app over 18 months.
Maldonado said developing his own content has been inspired, in part, by watching his mentor, “Black-ish” creator Kenya Barris, flourish in the industry.
Years ago Barris encouraged him to pursue his writing more, he said.
“As long as I’ve been in this business, 15 years, it didn’t occur to me that I could ever be a writer,” Maldonado said. “Naive as it sounds, I never really saw people of color, people like me as being in that role.”
Now that has changed. Maldonado is not only a writer on a hit show, but he will also have a 10-episode digital series titled “Who the F is Uncle Joe” on his new app.
Not bad for someone who knew nothing about developing apps prior to “Everybody Digital.”
“I was a kid in a candy store asking my developers for the moon,” Maldonado recalled. “Sometimes that’s the best place to be because you actually create something that you really want, rather than what the limitations are at the moment.”
