Mike Browne’s Blog

There are two more…
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Going to work on a promotional photoshoot with some of the lead actors from The 4400 tomorrow. I’m going to be a production assistant ensuring that the location is taken care of and cleaned up properly when the crew pulls out. It’s taking place in a mansion just a few blocks away so I don’t have to go far at all. I really like the show so it’ll be kind of fun to work on just for a day. If you haven’t seen it the first season is available on DVD. If you like dark sci-fi you might like The 4400. It’s a lot like X-Files which also shot it’s first 8 seasons here in Vancouver (I was a security guard at some of the locations for that show). Remember how season 9 sucked? That’s because the light was so different having moved to L.A. Anyway, off to bed… 5:45 am comes early.

Mark Messier always gave me the creeps. The picture kind of says it all… At least they’re happy about the ‘nucks win tonight.

That’s two in a row in this triple header against the Oilers. Saturday night on CBC is the next game. Go Canucks go!

BCIT : : FilmFLEX Technology Professional: Part-time, BCIT/Industry Partnership Certificate

I do wish I could afford to take this course. You get a boat load of equipment for your $28720.00 in tuition and fees for the 12 month course. It’s only part-time so I don’t think EI would pay for it. Not to mention the fact that we have to keep a roof over our heads and pay off our debts. So let’s see we’d need another $25k or so from somewhere. There’s always a part time job, but there’s no way we’re doing the student loan thing again. Those are the debts we’re currently paying down.

Hey can anyone spare $50k. Ugh! I’m a panhandler now.

Hooray! What a game. Finally the team showed up. I had been holding my breath and posts until after this game, in fact for the entire season. Now I can breathe a little, at least until tomorrow night when they play the Oilers again (and then again on Saturday). Now the Canucks are in 7th place rather than 9th and out of the playoffs. Hopefully that game is an omen of good things to come. Trevor “the Drought” Linden even scored. Regardless of that, he’s still one of my favourie players on the team

They got home rather quickly too. I saw Keith Carney and Eric Weinrich standing outside of Cin Cin looking at the menu this afternoon. I guess rental D-men get paid okay as I didn’t see them slink into The Cactus Club where I was hangin’ with Vince.

This is bad… really, really, really bad. Footage from a horrible martial arts film called Cui hua kuang mo (that’s Undfeatable to those of you who don’t speak Cantonese). Enjoy, if you possibly can:
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Tom Cruise and other Scientologists have seen to it that the episode of South Park making fun of Scientology doesn’t see. But we have the internet don’t we? Censorship bad. Below is some footage from the show…
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Yesterday afternoon things just felt off. Concentration was a major chore. I just wasn’t myself and even told Carol so when she got home. I thought maybe it was the March Equinox pulling my fragile psyche all over the place. Perhaps this case of the wonkies was being caused by Mercury’s being in retrograde as Carol mentioned. At 6:00 pm I got my answer. The phone rang and call display said the area code was 902, Nova Scotia. Immediately my heart sank. Something was wrong. I answered the phone and it was Andrea, my half-brother JP’s wife. First she asked me if I had been to Phil my other 1/2 brother’s blog. I said no. She then assured me that everything was okay and proceeded to tell me that Dianne, my birthmom’s home had burned down just hours earlier. She’s lost pretty much everything including one of her cats. Scamp, the bad one, is okay but poor Bobbie the cute bobbleheaded kitty didn’t get out. Andrea then told me the phone number for where Dianne was staying and I hung up and called immediately.

Dianne was in shock and distraught but able to crack a few jokes nonetheless. She’s homeless (for the moment) but assured me that she had very good insurance coverage and that many people including the Red Cross had already been to see her and give her support. JP is there today being a good son to his mom. I always feel like such a bad family member when this kind of thing happens and I live so far away.

Dianne told me that her neighbour noticed the fire outside of Dianne’s home and ran over to raise the alarm and make sure Dianne got out, which she did but short one cat, her precious Bobbie. The fire fighters managed to move Dianne’s car, which almost got caught up in the blaze, but pretty much everything else was lost. Dianne was the most upset about the family photos that were lost. Don’t worry sweetie we’ll send some more.

Being a volunteer firefighter in the Berwick Fire Department there’s a definite irony to this tragedy that wasn’t lost on Dianne and her colleagues who tried to lighten the mood reminding her that Monday nights are fire practice anyway.

Dianne’s been through enough trial and tribulation in one lifetime to warrant an Oprah show, believe me. The daughter of a war bride from a Dutch Jewish family who converted to Christianity to escape the Nazi’s, placing a child up for adoption, multiple serious health issues, divorce, raising two teenage boys on her own and now her home burns down. Ugh! Through it all though Dianne seems to have this unshakable spirit. She spoke very positively about her future even in the midst of such misfortune. Wow! I know plenty of folks (namely myself) who could take a page from that book. I’m proud to have that DNA you gave me Dianne. 🙂

As of this writing I haven’t heard yet what the cause of the fire was. Please send all your good vibes, thoughts and prayers – whatever you believe in. Dianne needs all the help she can get.

This particular Development Hell is of my own making, but there’s a lot to be learned here. I had some hard desicions to make over the weekend and having made them it feels much better.

The more I write of this story the more I realize that a backstory should remain just that. Zone 63 started life as a little story to support an idea for a faux reality show that I had and I thought, “Why not make a movie out of that too?” Some stories don’t need to be movies and this is one of them. Taken alone it’s just not that filmic. However, as a supporting story to a more interesting premise (my original intent) it works fantastically. So we’re taking another tack here.

No I’m not throwing the baby out with the bath water. The work that I’ve already done, specifically the short contained within the Zone 63 story structure, is still solid and a viable piece that will go far to help promote this other project, the name of which I’d like to keep on the QT for now.

Where does this leave me? I have an awesome backstory for my mock reality show. Also, I just now completed the third draft of the short. That’s right third! And am ready to let some people in the know have a look so I can polish it and shoot the darn thing. That’s right shoot! I’ll be posting a bit about what I need cast, crew and equipment wise once the breakdown is done.

Looks like we’ll be shooting this far sooner than I expected. Cool!

Thank goodness for Syd Field and this little gem.