Mike Browne’s Blog

This is the bench clearing brawl between Canada and Russia during the World Junior tournament in 1987:

Lest we forget… how embarrassing. And right in the middle of it all? Theoren Fluery. Always one to stir up trouble and he’s still at it. More here.

I woke up feeling like I was stuck again. One of the characters was driving me nuts as were a couple of the opening scences. They been reworked to contain stronger story elements. Necessary exposition is dealt with in a far more interesting (read less boring) manner.

Quote of the day from one of my heroes, George A Romero:

“I like the idea that the monster is in us… somewhere in there. That’s why I think I prefer all this sort of transformation monsters, that grow out of humans rather than beasts that are spawned in a septic tank. But, I suppose in a way that’d be human waste, too.”

Speaking of zombies, I started reading Stephen King’s Cell. So far: yikes! Of particular interest, it’s being made into a film with Eli Roth of Hostel and Cabin Fever fame at the helm.

I suffer from Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD). Medication is expensive and I’m broke and cheap. You do the math. Dopey me. I suffer to save money.

So sick of feeling crappy I called LD today. When I got there the stupid pharmacist gave me the run around. Apparenlty it takes 6 hours to put a sticker on a box. Ghey! Carol’s picking the stuff up after work for me. Thanks hon.

Too bad you can pick this stuff up without a presciption (and for a third of the price) like in the U.S. Why you need a scrip’ for this crap is beyond me. We usually pick up a three month supply in WA or OR when we’re there but haven’t done that in a while. Looks like time for another trip south.

UPDATE: drugs spell relief. Ahhhhh!

Added a little progress bar to the site on the right. It will measure this current writing project and those subsequent. It might be cool to show one through the actual production of a film too. Finding the time might be slightly difficult then with 18 hour days. The idea was baltantly stolen from another screenwriter’s blog – Man Bytes Hollywood – he ‘borrowed’ it from someone else who did likewise and so on. NucleusCMS had a plugin all ready for uploading to my site. Nice!

Lots of screenwriters with blogs, even Vancouverites. Like Jeff O’Brien’s Magnificent Iguana Productions. Clicking links on Jeff’s site brought some odd information to light. Jeff was born on August 5th (see his IMDb listing). Me too (mine).

As it turns out there are other people who have August 5th birthdays on IMDb as well. For example: Bob Clark – director of such films as Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things, Porky’s and of course, A Christmas Story. Three favourites for sure. Word on the street is Mr Clark will be remaking Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things here in Vancouver. Oh to play a shambling un-dead dude in a remake of such a genre classic. Dare to dream. He’ll be receiving an email shortly. Hopefully the project is still a go.

Strangely, Chuck Campbell, an actor working on Stargate here in Vancouver of late was born on August 5th, 1969… where? Halifax, Nova Scotia! Perhaps we were in the same nursery at the Grace Maternity. Weird.

From the look of this list we could put together quite the cast and crew of August the 5th babies.

There’s even a porn star. Although some were rather amusing I’m not going to quote the names of any of her films. Ew!

Although it looks like two pages it’s actually about 6 as some re-writing got done today. Friday was a “day off” as I needed time to think about some story problems. Some other things needed attention. Websites, for example:

• zombiefreak.com my horror portal
• redcritter.com the home for my entertainment company, Red Critter Productions

Neither are anywhere near finished, especially Red Critter but they’ve been started all the same. I’ve also started bashing around some ideas for promotional sites for Zone 63.

Creativity Tip 1: When you’re having trouble coming up with a solution to a creative problem do something mundane and mindless: Go for a walk in the fresh air. Have a shower (A lot of problem solving seems to occur for me in the shower). Fold laundry (don’t tell Carol about this one). Just taking one’s attention away from the pressure of the actual creative project, even for a little while, allows a person to work through some things you can’t seem to get through otherwise.

My site ZombieFreak.com has been resurrected. It’s one of the many projects I’ve been working on. There’s not a heck of a lot of content there yet, but it’s shambling along. The plan is utilize it to help in the promotion of my movies.

Check in often…

Especially cool is the bit about the Dutch zombie film, Worst Case Scenario. They’re looking for zombie extras. Airfare to Holland? Anyone?

The Starbucks Entertainment logo (new to me) magically appeared on the trailer for Akeelah and the Bee. Feeling a bit taken aback so some rewinding was in order. Sure enough there it was. A quick Google search for the term “Starbucks Entertainment” came up with this.

BusinessWire: Starbucks Entertainment and Lionsgate Announce a Partnership That Transforms Traditional Motion Picture Marketing and Distribution Model

Why not? Looks like a very interesting way to market a film.

Fox Searchlight is blogging the making of 28 Days Later and Trainspotting director Danny Boyle’s next project Sunshine. There are even photos from the making of Sunhine on Flikr.

More films will be doing this for nerds like us. It appears to be catching on although slowly. There are some, like Jason Reitman’s blog. He’s the director of Thank You for Smoking due to hit theatres on March 17th. That movie looks kind of fun.

Check out director Wim Wenders 50 golden rules of fimmaking in in MovieMaker Magazine’s issue #61 My Golden Rules. I was going to type them out after reading them in the past month’s issue, but found them already online. Funny stuff, but educational at the same time. This one is a favourite:

12. Don’t shoot a western if you hate horses. (But it’s okay to not be fond of cows.)