It’s tough being a filmmaker and having a day job.  I mean it really is.  I work my day job and am gone from the office 10-12 hours a day and then when I come home to the “office”, I hop straight on the computer and work on my scripts and treatments, work on ways to promote my website(s), try to conduct interviews for crew positions and build on my contacts and networking opportunities.

It gets so hectic at times that I can’t afford to waste any time cooking.  Yes, I know, going out to fast food joints is not a wise move for the gut and on the wallet, but when I can only afford 3 minutes, sometimes Popeye’s (which is right down the street) is a wise decision in my profession.  Well maybe not Popeye’s since everytime I go there, it always takes them 45 minutes to get some chicken that is already prepared and sitting there waiting to be plopped into some hungry customer’s bag.  I never understood what was so hard in putting the already cooked chicken in my bag.  The whole pocess of grabbing the chicken and then swiveling your torso to then place chicken in my bag or on my tray shouldn’t take any longer than 20 seconds.  But that’s another story in itself so I must digress.

So I’ve made the decision to cook when the opportunity presents itself and since I’m always up for creating my own opportunities, I’m trying to get into the habbit of cooking everyday.  Some days more elaborate than others, but for the most part everyday.

I’ve decided to post my cooking exploits on my blog.  I actually got the idea from a couple of my Facebook buddies, who swear that I can’t cook.  And even though the pictures below don’t do my cooking justice, and since I can’t invite everyone to my house for dinner, and obviously you can’t taste the food through your computer monitor…you’re going to have to take my word for it.  The food is good!

Tonight’s dish I did Italian.  Some rigotoni with spicy sausage, mushrooms, and peppers and my “special” sauce, which is actually Hunt’s sauce doctored up by yours truly.  But I doctor it up so much that you can’t tell that it’s Hunt’s sauce so yes, I’m claiming it!

Who knows?  Maybe this little blog segment may turn into a little web show of some sort, but that’s just wishful thinking.  I already got enough on my plate (no pun intended).

I usually would cap this segment off with a movie from Netflix, but that may have to wait til next time.  I’m about to settle down and watch the Lakers lose to play the Nuggets.  Hopefully Carmelo and Kobe will bring their A games and it’ll be an entertaining affair.

I’m about to log off here and get back to work.  Make sure you check my site out @ FundMyMovieOnline.com and add me as friend on Facebook and keep shooting me your ideas.

Tonight’s Recipe: Spicy Sausage Rigotoni

1 pound of sausage sliced or cubed (your preference)

1/2 cup sliced mushrooms

1/2 cup red bell pepper

2 cups Rigotoni

3 pinches of pepper

4 pinches of parsley

1/4 cup of grated mozzarella cheese

Sautee sausage, mushrooms and, peppers in pan while boiling water for the noodles.  Add the noodles after water reaches boiling point.  Add the sauce to the sausage and vegetables.  Add the pepper and the parsley and the grated cheese.  When sauce reaches boiling point, turn off and add to the noodles.

I’m so excited about the NEW & IMPROVED version of FundMyMovieOnline.com launching.  I’m so excited that I’ve grown goosebumps all over my arms.  The site is still a work-in-progress and I’m sure it will grow by leaps and bounds within the following weeks.  Just stay tuned!!!

It’s been a trying time for me trying to raise these funds for my first feature, but I believe that it will make the feeling feel so much better WHEN the mission is accomplished.  It’ll mean sooooooo much more.

As some of y’all may be aware of, my last site of this kind was called AMillionDollarsandaMovie.com and it didn’t fare too well.  I was trying so hard to capitalize on the pixel craze and not focusing on substance and content of what a website’s supposed to be all about.

This new site focuses on what a LOT of people get on the internet strictly for, and that is to shop and browse deals.  This site offers people the chance to be a movie producer without having to shell out any money other than what they would’ve spent anyway by going to their favorite stores, but now they’re visiting their favorite stores through my site.  How igenious is that?  You can become a film producer by shopping at a store that you would’ve shopped at anyway.  It’s a win-win for the both of us.

Just make sure you go to and bookmark (ctrl+g) FundMyMovieOnline.com then browse and shop.

That’s it!

If you have any more questions drop a comment below or check out the FAQs section on the main site.

I’m expecting great things from this site, but I need YOU to make that happen and we WILL make that happen.

Take care,

Brennen

Police in New York have seized over $36,000 worth of counterfeit Air Jordan sneakers that officers discovered during a routine traffic stop. The officers found 246 boxes of the phony shoes.

The counterfeiters obviously had plans to benefit tremendously from the immense popularity of the Jordan brand, but this news story led me to ask a bigger question:

Have the prices of Jordans gotten to the point, where people have to manufacture their own shoes from scratch just to be able to rock a pair?

As a kid growing up, I never owned a pair of Jordans because my mother couldn’t afford them.  Then on top of that, I grew up at a time when Jordan beat downs were rampant, meaning that I literally saw or heard about people getting jacked for their kicks.  But even still, I wanted a pair of my own.  And no matter how hard I tried, my mother would never cave in to my constant pressure of me trying to be cool by owning a pair of Jordans.  Yes indeed, I grew up a Jordanless child.

And now in my adult years, I refuse to pay over $200 for a pair of shoes.  I’d rather take that money and invest it in myself or my business rather on some shoes that won’t make me run faster or jump higher anyway.  And even if they did, I’d still think twice before forking over the cash at my local Foot Locker.

And now I hope that some of the principals I now have will rub off on some of the youth of today’s society, especially members of my own family, who foolishly would rather look good in front of their friends, but have nothing to show for it in the end.

We have to teach them that education should be the most important thing going on in their lives at the moment and not how fly they look.  And that no matter how fly our children think they are, that no one will give a damn about that if they can’t read or write or can’t even function on a rudimentary level, just to be able to work at say a fast food joint.  (K-Fed disclaimer: No harm was intended to those that work at fast food restaurants with the writing of this article.)

Sure, everyone wants the finest things in life, because I most certainly do but it’s all about perspective.  I’ve seen too many children flunk out of school wearing the trendiest of clothes and driving some of the fanciest cars for even someone who works 40 plus hour weeks to be able to afford.

Something’s not right when you ask some of these children what is the name of the capital city in their own state and they don’t know.  Ask them what 50 Cents real name is and they tell you Curtis Jackson, but when you say Barack Obama, they’re like “who?” or that they think Malcolm X was a rapper or musician.  If you don’t believe me, just look around and ask for yourself.

So when I see that these guys were caught trying to sell fake Jordan’s in the hood, it didn’t surprise me.  They’re just giving the people what they want.  Who’s to blame them?  We live in a capitalistic society.  Isn’t that what the Land of Milk and Honey is all about?

Note: All opinions & articles on this blog can also be found on The Urban Twist.  I’m a writer and founder of the latest and best news magazine site out giving our twist on the news.

There’s nothing really to be said about today other than we just shot some “filler” shots to cover up some of the things that we may have missed shooting the past week.

I’m just glad that everything’s done.  This whole week has been brutal.  I have a feeling that we will be doing some of this again sometime real soon.

Today was a crazy day!  I’ll just leave it at that.

Today’s scene was at a run-down motel.  And when I say run-down motel, I mean crack infested, prostitute living, homeless people begging, drugs, drugs, and more drugs!

But that’s the look I was going for, so I can’t complain.  But anyways, upon checking in, I mentioned to the clerk that was working there that I would be filming IN the room and she said okay, but I don’t think she knew what I was saying.  There was a language barrier. (This will come back up later on in my story.)

Well anyways, all was well with the shoot until we had to do an exterior shot of a couple of the actors entering the room.  I tried to be quick with it but with film equipment, there really is no such thing as “being quick”.

Anyways, the main manager there saw us with the camera and came stampeding towards us as we’re trying to cover it up.  Keep in mind that he had a crackhead with him, who was going around cleaning up the rooms for him.

The manager saw the equipment and saw the actors, with one of them dressed as a prostitute and I think he thought we were filming a porn.

I tried to convince him that we were legit and that we talked to the lady at the front desk and that maybe she didn’t understand me but she sure took my money. He said we should’ve talked to him.  ( I don’t know how that would’ve been possible when he wasn’t there when we spoke to the lady.  But anyways…)

So we left after I insisted on getting my money back and which he did.  We moved onto over to another motel but the look doesn’t quite feel the same.

To be honest, it looks like we may have to shoot the majority of the scene over again at a later time.

Today was the day where I needed the most actors and I must admit that the day didn’t get off to a good start.

I needed like 6 extras to be apart of this scene and none of them showed up even after I confirmed with them the time and the place.

Maybe it’s because they’re extras and they felt that they wouldn’t get enough screen time or maybe it’s because of the Ravens game that was on at the same time of us filming, and they just NEEDED to see their boys lose. (I’m a Steelers Fan.  We’re not having a good year, okay?)  Whatever the excuse was, it left me in a predictament.

On to plan B.  I just called around and got some of the actors to call around as well.  To make a long story short, this one cool brotha came through by the name of Joey and he held his role down.  Even though there wasn’t any lines for him, his presence was definitely felt and I appreciate him for coming through the way he did.

I just improvised and all in all, things worked.  Just glad to get today over with.  It was a long day.

Today was and should be the easiest shoot we have for the entire week.

Today mainly consisted of one shot that took longer to setup than it actually took for us to film.

It was a dolly shot that introduced ‘Big Lou’ to the film.

Big Lou is one of the main Bad Asses in the film.  The actor playing Big Lou, Dave was supposed to meet us at 9:00pm to shoot this shot which took no longer than 20 seconds to shoot, literally.

The office building that we were using closed at 11:00pm so we were like, we had plenty of enough time to shoot this shot.

So we set up shop at 8:30 and waited for Dave to come.  He isn’t there.  Called him, no answer at 9:00 and so we wait some more.  Called him at 9:45 and no answer and so we wait some more.

Did you know that this cat came in at 10:54 pm and wasn’t even dressed.  We hustled to get him in some clothes within 3 minutes and shot the shot in 2 minutes and packed our stuff up in one minute.  It was the fastest that I have moved in a long time.

Actually we got out of there at 11:09 because the office building manager was pretty cool.

Other than this shot we drove around Baltimore with a camera hanging out the window shooting some footage for one of our montage sequences.

Let me remind whoever plans on doing this next to be careful holding a camera out the window to shoot some footage, not because the camera might fall and break but because you may think your shooting the city but in reality from the city’s perspective, someone may pull something out and shoot you.  (Camera’s look like guns in the dark people!)

Okay, it’s day two now and I’m feeling pretty good about today.  I decided to leave all of yesterday problem’s behind even though they really aren’t far from my mind.

Today’s shoot started at 8 in the morning at a Greek restaurant over in Greek town off of Eastern Ave.  I forgot the name of the restaurant but will be posting it later in the credits.

The owner of the restaurant was pretty cool.  Of course he was the Uncle of one of the producers.  He let us use the restaurant as long as we were out of there by 11, which is when their business really begins to pick up.

The actors were on time.  There’s only two needed for this scene, our main actor, Elijah, and Jan-David Soutar.  You can check Jan-David’s Myspace page out here and show him some love.  Elijah doesn’t have a Myspace page yet, but that will change soon.  (I hope you’re reading this man.)

The shoot went off without a hitch and we were able to wrap up right at 11 as people were beginning to file into the restaurant.  It got crowded in there real quick and I’m just glad that we finished before the crowd got in.

For Lunch, we decided to order from the restaurant as well.  We all ordered Gyros which is pronounced as ‘yiro’, which was explained to me.  All of this time I’ve been calling them ‘Gyros’ and Gyros are one my favorite foods and I’ve been butchering their name for all of these years.  I just thought that I’d throw a little Greek lesson in while I was at it.

After the restaurant scene, we moved on to some more running scenes which took place in some alley ways in Baltimore.  There were dead rats and trash in one of the alleyways we were filming.  Yes, it looked nasty, but it looked perfect for film.  Chris, one of the producers, even went as far as to move a dead rat into one of the shots to make it look more “authentic”.  I’m glad it was him because I damn sure wasn’t touching it.

A crowd of kids (about 10-15) came walking past the set on their way from school and asked were we filming a movie and I told them “yeah”.   They got excited when they thought that we were from “The Wire”.  It struck me as being odd that these kids couldn’t have been any older than 7 or 8.  Why in the world would they be watching the wire?

Well anyways, I found myself preaching to them a little bit and told them to stay in school and to keep their parents proud and to stay out of trouble.  Maybe my words will encourage them some day and then again maybe they won’t, but hopefully by them seeing this “film guy” on this day and doing something that they love and knowing that through school is how I got here,  maybe it will touch at least one of them.

After shooting, I decided to go to the Barbershop to see if I could recruit someone to replace the Actress that dropped out on me the day before.  Yes, I know, the barbershop could be a little unorthodox for me to find an Actress.  But if anyone’s ever been to Dabney’s over on the corner of Northern Parkway and Reisterstown Road, you will know that that place stays packed and anything goes.  All types of people come through there.

To make a long story short, I was talking to my main barber, Dave, who happens to be in the film as well, and I was explaining to him the situation about the actress canceling on me when the guy whose hair he was cutting overheard me talking and said that he had someone for who was looking for a gig.  I was like cool.  I gave him my number and he did the same.

I went home, not really expecting anything from him, and began to work on tomorrow’s shoot and then I got a call from some girl named Parris, who this guy forwarded my number over to.

She said that she was really interested in the film.  I gave her an impromptu interview over the phone and she sounded really cool and enthused about working on this project.

After our conversation, I told her I would like to meet with her to go over a few things tomorrow and that was that.  We hung up the phone and I felt really good about her.  She lifted a whole lot of pressure off of my chest.

After today I just want to say forget Kevin Bacon, and that I think the game should be renamed to “Six Degrees of a Barbershop”.