“Much wandering. Much looking around. Continuing to do what I was doing earlier, and that is just wander around and explore and say hi to people and meet some people I'm glad to say I have met finally.
Really lucked into this: I got to meet Frank Darabont, the filmmaker, as in the guy who made the film version of THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION. I also met poster artist Drew Struzan. They're friends, they've worked together, and they were there promoting the series Darabont's shooting now, he's shooting an AMC thing called THE WALKING DEAD. Adaptation of a comic book about zombie apocalypse, so it's Darabont doing more horror, and God bless him for it. I love that he's such a mild-mannered seeming person, and is willing to do things like zombie apocalypse -- and remember, SHAWSHANK has some pretty dark stuff in it. And then there's THE MIST, which I'm glad about. Anyway: I got to meet him! And I spoke to him and Drew Struzan briefly. Struzan, it turns out, has a day-and-a-half-old grandchild, and was very sure not to shake hands because he didn't want to bring con germs back to where the baby is being taken care of.
I got to mention to Darabont something I'm very fond of, a particular moment in THE GREEN MILE, a particular shot of walking through the fotrest with fireflies all over the place. Turned out he did that because when he was in Ohio shooting SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, he saw, you know, so many, many fireflies -- and I wonder if he had ever seen fireflies in his life -- and thought they were so neat and amazing that he needed to get them into one of his films. And he did. We also have the shared experience, apparently, of having heard cicadas. We kind of commisserated over just how amazing and annoying *that* sound is.
So that was one particular happy moment in today's Comic Con. I covered a lot of ground, both in the convention center and outside; I did an 'area fam,' made sure I knew where the Ralphs grocery store is, and where the nearest mall is, and some of the food options. And next I'll need to eat, so I'll want to take care of that, but I wanted to check in. More to come.”
chris_walsh