John Q. Phats Entertainment

Today, I give the third edit of Nice Guys Finish Last with notes added to Gabe.  The way we’ve been doing it, is he gives me the edit, I add notes to it, and give it back to him.  Then he makes the corrections to it and gives it back to me.  Then I make more notes on that one and the process starts all over.  My goal was always to make Nice Guys Finish Last under 15 minutes.  It started out at over 18.  We cut it down to 15 and some change and I think with these new edits we might just get it under 15.  The point wasn’t just because I wanted to make it a 15 minute long short film.  Really, when you’re watching a short film that long, what’s another 2-3 minutes?  The reason I want it to be under 15 minutes is because it’s a 16 page script with some fat in it.  Things can be cut.  I want to cut it down, because it doesn’t need to be over 15 minutes long.  We can tell the story in under 15 minutes.  In fact if we really wanted to, we could probably tell the story in 12 minutes.  When first looking at the 18 minute cut, almost everyone told me
“You’re crazy, there’s no way you’ll get it under 15 minutes.” 
We cut it down to 15 and some change without taking out a single scene.  We trimmed some scenes here and there, but that was about it.  With these new notes, I’m suggesting to Gabe that we cut an entire segment out of a scene.  Not because I want to get it under 15 minutes but because that portion of the scene is kind of boring and unnecessary.  I always keep the goal in mind of wanting it to be funny.  I want people to watch it and laugh.  If a scene is pushing me over 15 minutes but it’s hilarious, I’ll keep it in there.  Hell, if we had enough footage to make people laugh for 2 hours straight, I would make it a feature length movie.  But that’s not the case.  The reality is, is that we shot enough footage and wrote a script for an entertaining 13-15 minute long short film.  
I have a lot to do for Project X this weekend, I’ll be busy.  Aside from a BBQ, I’ll pretty much be sitting in my room planning things out.  A BBQ for my friends lasts roughly 15-20 hours though.  The first time I took my girlfriend to one of these BBQ’s, when leaving she said
“I didn’t even know BBQ’s could go that long!”
I just responded with
“Yeah, they rock it till the wheels fall off.”
My friends have actually inspired me quite a bit in terms of short films.  So, I consider it really awesome research.

So, apparently I can see in to the future.  In my last post I talked about how great it would be to get in to the SoCal Film Festival.  Later that day, I got an acceptance E-Mail from the SoCal Film Festival.  I have freak luck like that sometimes.  Before shooting Nice Guys Finish Last, I needed a light kit.  The kit I wanted cost about $900.  As sort of a joke to my room mate I said
“I’m going to make $1100 today.”  
before I left the house.  So, I’m walking to the bank.  I decided to walk, for some reason.  I forget why.  I think because parking in my complex sucks and I already had a good spot.  So, I’m going to cross the street and the little blinky guy tells me it’s time to walk.  So I step in to the street and BAM it hits me!  Not an idea of how I’m going to make $1100, but a truck making a right turn.  I wasn’t really hurt, I was just shocked.  I was walking and then all of a sudden I was on the ground.  It sort of knocked me back and I fell back on to the sidewalk.  As I’m getting up, a guy is getting out of the truck with an “O shit” look on his face.  He comes running over to me and says
“O my God!  I’m sorry!  I’m Sorry!  I’m sorry!  Are you ok?!  O fuck!  I didn’t see you!  I’m so sorry!”
The guy was like physically shaking.  So I stand up and I’m a little confused.  I’m thinking to myself “What the hell just happened?  Who the hell is this guy?  What’s going on?” Finally, I put two and two together and realize what happened.  I tell the guy I’m ok and he’s still freaking out.  He looks back at his truck and back at me and says
“I’m so sorry!  You’re not going to call the cops are you?!  I can’t deal with the cops, my license is suspended because of a DUI!  Please don’t call the cops!”
I’m still a bit dazed, so I’m just kind of standing there confused.  Then he says
“Look, I get these settlement checks every month from a job injury I got 3 months ago.  I’ll sign the settlement check and give it to you.  Then we can both just walk away.  OK, sound good?”
Before I could say anything he was handing me the check and shaking my hand.  In all honesty, I probably wouldn’t have taken it if he had let me speak.  I had no injuries, it was a mistake, no big deal.  I checked later and there was literally, not a scratch on me.
I look down at the check as he drives off and it’s for $2253.43.  I figured somehow, the universe conspired to help me, so I donated $1153.43 to my sister for my niece, for a college fund or something. 
Weird, huh?  That’s sort of how I felt about The SoCal Film Festival post yesterday.  Maybe I should try that more often.
Man!  It sure would be great if Kevin Smith, David Fincher, Peter Jackson, Sam Rami, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez,  or Guillermo del Toro E-Mailed me and offered me a sweet ass paid internship!  Or if I got invied to help out on Dexter, my favorite show of all time!  You know what, I would settle for an E-Mail interview with Michael C. Hall or really anyone on that cast.
I think part of my success with film festivals has to do with how easy I make it for them.  First of all Censored is 3:30 seconds long.  I note that on the DVD I send out, along with the title, my name, what region DVD it is, what film festival it’s for, and the tracking number they give me when I pay online.  I also put another sticker on the back of the case with the title, my name, my phone number, and the tracking number again.  And I use very stylish Simpons stamps.  My goal is for them to take one look at the DVD and not have to do anything extra.  I want them to open the envelope, take one look at it, pop it in to the DVD player, and go.  No looking up information and no wondering what the DVD is, who made it, and why they have to watch it.  No extra steps.  Festivals can sometimes get thousands of DVD’s, why would you make it any more difficult for them?  You’re only asking for a rejection letter if you do. 
Wow, I went way off course.  I originally started this post to talk about the SoCal Film Festival.  I just mailed my screener copy to them.  According to my records, the festival takes place from 9/14/2009 – 9/23/2009.  I haven’t gotten the exact schedule or location yet, but I will be sure to let you guys know when I do.  I have a lot of friends in this area who couldn’t make it to the LA shows.  Which is totally understandable.  I’m one of the few insane OCers that thinks that LA “Isn’t that far.”  It will be nice to be so close to a festival for a change.  I’m really looking forward to it.
Here is the link to the festivals website and I hope some of you can make it:
SoCal Film Festival 

I watched 2 episodes of Science of the Movies last night.  That show is a big reminder of what I don’t have access to.  One episode was all about different moveable camera mounts.  There was this gigantic camera mount that had 12 points of axis that you could program to do motions over and over again.  It’s basically so you can layer two shots on top of each other.  Since the motion of two shots match perfectly, the two shots together look seamless.  I honestly had no clue that’s how it was done.  All of my split screen shorts were pretty much that, minus the motion.  I didn’t realize it, but I kind of stumbled on the early meathod of special effects.  That’s kind of cool.  I find that I do that a lot actually.  It’s kind of weird.  I don’t know if I hear about it somewhere else and subconsciously make myself feel like I thought of it, or if I really do come up with concepts that just happen to match what’s already out there. 
I am meeting with a script writer today to discuss Project X.  By spreading the word through my contacts, I’ve actually got some people interested.  Now all I need is a roughly $5000, an HD Camera, locations, equipment, skill, and food.  Huh.  Anyway, yeah, I’m going to be focusing on that.  It’s tough to juggle everything though.  Nice Guys Finish Last is almost done.  That’s going to need to go out to festivals and Censored is still going.  By the way, I submitted to something a while back called the SoCal Film Festival.  I really hope I get accepted to that.  That would be awesome.  Mainly because they would be holding it right near my house.  I could probably go to every night of that if I wanted to.  It’s literally a 10 minute drive vs an hour+ drive to the festivals Censored has been accepted to.  I would really like Censored to screen somewhere outside of California.  Don’t ask me why, I just think it would be cool.   Every time you get accepted to a festival they send you these little acceptance things:

Like that guy right there.  I suppose can put those on the DVD’s that I send out to other festivals as sort of a selling point.  Imagine if I get selected for all 4 of the other festivals I entered?  That will be 7 total.  That will look kind of insane.  You also get one if you’ve been nominated for or win an award at a festival.  Strictly Background had like a bajillion acceptance ones and 6 Best Documentary Award winners.  These things are actually called Laurels.  Every festival does them.  At least as far as I can tell, every festival does one.  I think they are kind of official and regal looking.  It’s kind of neat to have these.  Sort of like a digital trophy.  Hopefully when Nice Guys Finish Last is done it gets it’s own collection of them.

EDIT(7/29/2009- 3:32PM) – I just got an acceptance E-mail from the SoCal Film Festival.  That kicks so much ass.  I’ll give you guys all the details in tomorrows post.

Is anyone planning on going to the AOF ?  I think I’m going to check it out tonight.  I’m not sure what I’m going to see, but I’ll see something.  The first night I went we got a huge bag of SWAG.  Everyone loves SWAG.  Lets face it, if it’s free, someone will take it.  There’s a sign near my house advertising free dirt.  Anyway, the SWAG was mainly postcards of other short films.  There was a ton of them.  In the mix was also a DVD for a movie called Long Pig: Unrated Extreme Edition.  I’m going to take a guess here and say that it’s probably amazingly gory.  An independent film that’s unrated.  O yeah, there’s going to be some crazy gore in it.  I’ve seen some pretty intense stuff.  I really feel like, if I can watch Irreversible, I can probably make it through anything.  It’s not that Irreversible was gory, it was just hard to watch because of the context of it.  That movie was unrelentingly brutal.  I’m reading reviews of Long Pigs now.  Apparently, there’s an “anus scene.”  I’m not sure how I feel about that.  Revolted and curious at the same time I suppose.  I’m not much of a horror buff, but maybe I’ll check it out.  Or I’ll give it to my neighbor to check out.  He loves gory films. 
Gabe should be bringing my hard drive tonight with the scene we shot last Thursday for Nice Guys Finish Last added.  I really wanted Nice Guys Finish Last to be under 15 minutes.  I bet it’s probably going to run a little over 16 minutes.  Which isn’t bad.  If there’s no fat and every scene progresses the story line, I have no problem with that.  I suppose it is what it is.
I’m looking in to renting a theater to show Nice Guys Finish Last.  I thought it would be cool to have a sort of theater showing and get some feedback before I send it off to festivals.  I found one for $650 for one night.  If I charged $10 per person, I would have to have at least 65 people show up to break even.  I know, that I know that many people but weather they would be available or not is a whole different story.  I found another one that rents by the week and that was $1000 for 4 shows.  So, I would need to get 100 people there from Thursday- Sunday.  That’s actually not that bad.  I bet I could pull that off.  O wait, that’s just for a stage, not a screen and all that other crap.  Damn.  I bet I could get a projector though and rig something up.  In fact, I know a guy that has a projector and Gabe is in a band.  Bands have speakers and stuff, right?  I’ll have to get back to you on this one.  Or maybe I can have the actors act it out in real time on stage.  Wow, that’s a terrible idea.

Censored played at the Action on Film Festival on Sunday (7/26/2009).  It was a lot of fun.  I got a goody bag filled with stuff.  They invited film makers to come up for a Q and A after the screening.  I went up and said
“If anyone has anything negative to say, I’m totally open to hear it.  Hearing what’s wrong with it is the only way I’m going to make a better film.  So, hit me.”
Too negative?  I didn’t get any negative comments, they were all very nice.  How did you think of that?  What did you shoot it on?  Will the DVD release be uncensored?  I enjoyed it a lot.  It kind of made me feel like a big shot.  I don’t know why, but sometimes, when I’m in the right mood, I love talking in front of a crowd.  I wasn’t nervous at all. 
During the showing, there wasn’t much laughter.  At first I started to feel badly about it, but everyone in the end clapped and one of the other film makers even told me it was great.  Maybe I misjudged Censored.  I really did think it was a laugh out loud comedy.  perhaps it’s not.  Maybe it’s one of those things that’s just kind of clever and entertaining.  I’m totally fine with that.  As long as people enjoy it.  It got a good applause at the end and like I said, nobody told me it was a God awful piece of crap or anything.  Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment, but I almost want someone to stand up one day and say
“That was the biggest pile of crap I have ever seen in my entire life.  You should die.” 
My response would probably be a raise of my eyebrows and a
“Wow, ok, thank you….I guess.”
Overall, I felt a little outclassed to be honest.  One of the film makers said that the budget for their film was $5000.  Censored cost me like $50 to make.  I have to say, the other shorts that showed, looked amazing.  Wilcox Sex Therapy had some nice lighting and cinematography and it was hysterical.  The actor (David Brainard) who played the sex therapist nailed it.  I actually went up to the director of Wilcox Sex Therapy, Daniel Gruen and told him that it was a great film.  It was very well done.  There was another film called The Condom Killer, that was stylized like a 1950’s detective story.  I thought it was awesome that they pulled it off.  It looked really good.  Despite feeling outclassed a bit by the other films, I had a great time.  I’m really glad they did a Q and A at the end.  That was really nice.
As for Nice Guys Finish Last, I’m really looking forward to seeing it with the new scene we shot last Thursday.  Once I get my hard drive back from Gabe, I’ll see about posting some of the out takes.
In a totally unrelated note, according to my home phones caller ID, The Staples Center called at random times in the night and left me 9 messages of a fax machine beeping.  The last one I answered this morning at like 6AM.  I know I’m a Ducks fan, but Jesus Staples Center, what the hell is your problem?

So, the Pick up shots are done.  It was actually pretty painless.  We had a very small crew and we knew what we were doing.  I went with a little bit of a different workflow this time.  Rather then just having the actors memorize the script and then shooting, I went through the dialogue with them a bunch and made the adjustments I wanted before I pressed record.  So, they memorized the dialogue and knew how to act it out.  It worked out very well.  I also really tried to avoid saying things like “I need you to be angrier.” I’m usually pretty good about that, but sometimes I slip up.  Instead, I tried to direct through situations that the character would be put in.  For example with Caine, I needed him to be more upset so I said
“OK Caine, so this sort of thing always happens to you.  Chris always gets the girl and you don’t understand it.  He has the girl of your dreams practically throwing herself at him and he’s complaining to you that she’s not the right one.  You haven’t been laid in God knows how long.”
Instead of just saying
“I need you to be more angry.”
 It worked out really well.  Not only was it more of a collaboration between me and the actors, but we both got what we wanted out of it.  We actually had a lot of fun doing this.  I’m thinking about posting one of the out takes where everyone was just kind of goofing around.  What do you guys think?  Would that be something you want to see?  The only comment I’ll get, is probably an ad for Viagra, but that’s ok, I’ll take that as a cue to post it.

Today is the day for the pick up shots.  I’m hoping for a small crew of just me and a boom mic operator.  Why?  Because, nobody likes pick up shots, I’m doing everyone a favor by keeping it minimal.  Plus I think it will make things go faster.  It’s not that difficult of a scene really.  I’ll head over there after work, go over the new dialogue with the actors, set up the lights, and then shoot.  Shouldn’t be too difficult.  I think I’ve gone over how much I hate pick up shots, so that’s established.  I still don’t think words could ever describe my true hatred for pick up shots.
Gabe got me the 2nd cut of Do Nice Guys Finish Last today.  I’m looking forward to checking it out.  Watching a short film over and over again has always been kind of tough for me.  In the book I’m reading (How Not to Make a Short Film), it’s outlined perfectly.  When you first look at all of your footage there are times you want to shoot yourself and times you want to celebrate.  Not per project, no, this all happens in one project.  I was actually very comforted to read that this is all normal.  The truth is, that nobody is closer to your project then you are.  If you see a flaw, it’s going to scream out at you every time you watch it.  That’s the first thing you’re going to see in fact when that flaw comes on screen.  Here’s what I do.  Upon first seeing all those flaws jump out at me, I let my brain freak out for thirty seconds.  This is usually just my brain saying “God damn it” over and over again.  Then I take a deep breath and try to think about ways to fix them.  If I can’t find a way to fix one, I show the scene to an impartial third party.  Sometimes I’ll even ask “Did you see anything wrong with that scene?”  If the impartial third party notices the flaw, then I have a potential problem and I possibly have to re shoot something or figure something out.  %95 percent of the time though, they don’t even notice it.  Sometimes I will run it by 4-5 people and %95 of the time, they all don’t notice it.  If they don’t see it, I’m making way too big a deal out of it and it’s passable.  Some times I’ll even add “Did you see that X was wrong with it?”  Most of the time, the answer is “I didn’t even notice that.”  That flaw will always jump out at me when watching the short film but at that point, I can live with it.  I never talk about the flaw again.  It’s over, it’s there, I’ve dealt with it, and %99 of the population probably isn’t ever going to notice it or care if they do.
Has anyone ever seen Science of the Movies?  It’s on the Science Channel every Thursday night.  It’s an amazing show.  I’ve started DVRing it.  The host of the show is named Nar Williams.  I want that guys job so badly.  All he does is goes to these different companies that offer different technologies in film making and asks them questions about how the technology works and then sees them in action and most of the time he gets to participate.  All of that aside for an aspiring film maker it’s an amazing look at new technologies in the industry.

So, the Action on Film Festival is happening this Sunday in Pasadena.  Where my film is being shown?  No clue.  The schedule says Academy 2 but I have no clue what that means.  They really aren’t making this easy.  Clicking on the schedule link on the web site leads you to a page with links for 2006 and 2007 schedules.  The 2009 schedule is available in PDF format here:
Action on Film Schedule
As you can see Censored is playing in the 4PM block.  What that means, I have no idea.  I guess it’s playing sometime around 4PM.  I have no clue what’s playing with my short film.  You can buy tickets here:
Action on Film Festival Tickets- Single Program Pass
Near the bottom of that page it says
“When you make your purchase be sure to write the name of the film you are coming to see in the memo portion of the confirmation form.”
So, I guess write “Censored” in the memo portion of the confirmation form.  I have to be honest, the web site looks kind of shady and doesn’t really seem like it’s working as it should.  E-Mail me if you want to attend and I’ll do my best to walk you through it.
I think by Academy 2 they mean The Regency Academy Theaters.  Just a guess though.

So, I have to do some pick up shots for Do Nice Guys Finish Last.  I hate pick up shots with every fiber of my being.  If pick up shots were a person and I had the last two bullets on earth, I would shoot pick up shots in the face twice.  A pick up shot is after you’ve finished shooting, you find in editing that you have to go back and re shoot something or get some extra footage that you missed.  They suck.  There’s a big buzz when you’re done shooting.  It’s like “Yes!  We’re done!”  When you’re done shooting pick up shots, it’s like “I can’t believe I had to do that bullshit again.”  And most of the time, it’s like 2 shots.  So you set up, go through the motions with the actors, set up the lights, get the cameras ready, and then shoot for 10 minutes.  So, I have to do that for one scene.  We had a little malfunction and pretty much all of the footage from that scene is trashed.  After looking at the dialogue in that scene though, I’ve decided to change it.  It wasn’t really working anyway.  So I suppose this is a chance to make an improvement on a weak point in the script.  I’m running the edits by Gabe to see what he thinks and he’s shot down every single one of my rewrites.  He would make a good producer.  If he could only add “besides, that would be too expensive” at the end of his shoot downs, he would be all set.  It’s tough sometimes not to get defensive when someone tells you something you’ve created sucks.  If I start to feel that, I just say “Hmmmm” and give myself a minute.  Then I ask questions like “Well, why does it suck?  What would make it better?”  It just takes me a minute to remind myself that they are trying to help me and ultimately, this will make my short film better.  No matter how negatively people come at me, I always just try to hear their opinion.  It doesn’t help me to be defensive, however getting their opinion helps me a lot.  Big time companies are way more interested in why their customers left then why their customers stayed.  They want to know what happened, why you left, and how they could have kept you.  Just like I want to know why you hated my short film and what I could have done differently to make you like it.  That way I can take that in to account on my next short film.  I often stray from my original point.  What was I talking about?  O yeah, pick up shot blow and somehow, this is all Chris’s fault……  Stupid Chris.

So, today is the day that Gabe gets my notes for the first Nice Guys Finish Last cut.  He’s been camping for a week straight.  I hope his arms didn’t get ripped off by a bear or something.  That would suck.  How would he edit?  Now that he’s back though we can really get to work on this thing.
I just realized this weekend that I’ve been referring to Nice Guys Finish Last incorrectly.  The title isn’t Nice Guys Finish Last, it’s Do Nice Guys Finish Last?.  That totally screws up my acronym for it too.  It’s not NGFL, it’s DNGFL.  I like the first acronym better.  Meh, it doesn’t matter.
Right now in LA, the Crazy 4 Cult art show is going on.  It’s all art that people have done based off of cult classic films.  Check out the web site here.  There’s all kinds of stuff there.  If you check the web site, you can see what’s for sale.  Prices range quite a bit.  There’s stuff for the casual enthusiast for like $25 and stuff for the hard core art collector for like $4000.  I haven’t checked it out yet, but I hope to make it out there sometime this week.  I’m a big fan of cult classic movies.  Fight Club is my absolute favorite movie of all time.  What actually defines a movie as “Cult Classic” though?  I suppose it’s a movie with a small, but loyal following.  I guess it’s like comparing Transformers to The Big Lebowski.  Transformers made a shit load of money, but nobody really talked about it after it was released.  The Big Lebowski has Lebowski Fest, which happened in Long Beach this year, which I attended.  The Big Lebowski was released in 1998.  Ten years later, they are still holding a festival to celebrate it’s release.  In ten years will anybody really even be talking about Transformers?  No, probably not.  Some cult classics actually bomb in theaters.  Fight Club, Super Troopers, and Donnie Darko are all good examples.  All bombed in theaters, but look at them now.  I think I’ve had 4 hour long conversations about Donnie Darko before.  That movie is amazing, for that very reason.  It only made $517,375 in theaters.  It probably killed in DVD sales.  I bet it did so shitty in theaters because, really, how do you explain that movie to someone? 
“OK, there’s this kid and this guy dressed as a rabbit and he can possibly see in to the future.  He’s taking medication and because he sleep walks the plane engine that falls through the roof of his house doesn’t kill him and then he meets the guy in the rabbit suit….  No, wait, the rabbit tells him to sleep walk, so he knew the rabbit before that…..Or something.”
After trying to explain that movie like 3 times I finally gave up and now if someone asks me what it’s about, I just say
“Just see it, it’s an awesome movie.”
Maybe what saved it is it’s movie channel debut.  That’s where I first saw it.  It has some really interesting shots.  The first time I flipped to it, it was at the point where Donnie is looking in the bathroom mirror and stabbing it with a knife.  After watching that scene for like 20 seconds, I immediately went to my On Demand thing and started from the beginning.  That one scene just brought up way too many questions.  I couldn’t resist.
I ordered Dexter Season 3 from Amazon on Sunday.  It’s on sale right now for $21.49.  It’s not out yet, but I preordered it.  I love that show so much.  I will see Gamer just because Michael C. Hall is in.  When he’s playing Dexter he plays it with a touch of sarcasm when he’s hiding who he really is.  It’s also a touch of “I’m acting.”  Not acting, like acting on a show, like putting on an act just to please everyone else.  It’s very subtle, but I think it makes the show.  If you came in mid show and started watching it at a point where Dexter is in front of normal people you would probably think “something is up with that guy.”  It makes it, because something is up with him.  He’s a serial killer.
Directing actors is always my favorite part of film making.  It’s never the same experience.  You’re always trying to convey something differently.  I bet Martin Brest(director) had a giant grin on his face when he was directing Al Pacino in the scene from Scent of a Woman where he’s in the auditorium.  That is without a doubt on my list of top 3 monologues ever performed.  One of the other ones on my top 3 is the scene in The Devils Advocate where Al Pacino is giving that speech about mankind and God.  At one point during that scene I actually thought to myself “Wow….  I never knew that Al Pacino was the Devil.  That’s awesome.”