John Q. Phats Entertainment

The Internet at my house is back up.  I’m not sure how it broke, or what was wrong with it, but the Internet company had to send a signal through to fix it.  When you’re someone like me, losing Internet is one of the worst things that can happen.  Seriously, it was really bad yesterday.  Last night, I’m sitting there messing with it and a couple times in the middle of it I thought to myself “I can fix this, I just need to look it up on the inter-  …..O yeah.”
I have a lot to talk about today.  Mainly, I want to talk about the new cut of Do Nice Guys Finish Last.  The way me and Gabe have been working on this is that he gives me the cut, I make notes on it, then hand them back to him to make the changes or corrections.  We are currently on draft number 4, soon to be on 5.  I have the 4th cut with notes on it all ready for him.  Once we have a final cut, we’ll do some color correction, and then transitions.  Transitioning from 1 scene to another is a big deal for this short film.  There are some scenes that make huge jumps in time in the same setting.  The only way to show that jump of time is through a transition.  It if goes from a straight cut, people are left sitting there thinking “What the hell just happened?”  I’m going to be doing some research on transitions later on this week.  I showed Do Nice Guys Finish Last to someone besides me and Gabe yesterday.  I was very happy to see that she laughed at all the right times.  She actually made a comment that really just pin pointed what I was going for.  She said “It was really funny, but it’s kind of true.”  That is exactly what I was looking for with this short film.  I wanted people to watch it and not only laugh because it was funny, but laugh because it was true.  Almost like a George Carlin stand up act.  What he says is hysterical, but the main reason it’s so hysterical is because it’s sort of true.  That’s what I was looking for.  I think maybe Do Nice Guys Finish Last is going to be better then I originally thought.  The audio and lighting are already all a step above everything else we’ve done.  I’m really looking forward to this being done and I can’t wait to start sending it to festivals.
On to the Project X news.  I got a script from the script writer last night.  I haven’t read it yet.  Something went wrong with the file format so I can’t exactly open it just yet.  But it’s awesome that I got it.  I should be getting another copy of it sometime today or tonight.  If this works out, this will be the first time I’ve directed something that someone else has written.  Actually, that’s not true.  I’ve directed one other thing that someone else wrote, but nothing really came of it.  So, it doesn’t really count. 
I’m still waiting to hear back from 3 other festivals.  I’m getting a little nervous.  The screening dates for those are pretty close already.  I figured I would have gotten some sort of rejection or acceptance letter by now.  I suppose if the film festival happens and my short film doesn’t play there, then it was rejected.

Last night, on the way home, 3 ideas for short films came to me.  I told myself that I would write them out after I was done working out.  I finished working out and out of habit I turned on NHL 09 for Playstation3.  Midway through it’s start up, I realized that I wasn’t supposed to be playing NHL 09 and that I was supposed to be writing out some scripts.  I convinced myself to play just one game, which usually turns in to roughly 5 games.  I am so addicted to NHL 09, it’s not even funny.  Seriously, I’ve been playing that game for a year and I can’t stop.  NHL 10 comes out in 2 months and then it will all start all over again.  So, I start to play and I’m playing goalie mode and I’m not joking you, the computer scored like 4 goals on me in the time span of 1 real life minute.  Which is like 20 seconds in game time.  If you were in my kitchen at the time you would have heard:
“damn it………son of a bitch………SHIT!……….MOTHER FU- Screw this!”
 With that, I turned off the system and went upstairs and started writing.
I got a lot more out of writing those scripts then I would have gotten from playing NHL 09 for 4 hours.  I immediately sent one script to Chris and he really liked it.  It seriously is, the perfect short film for festivals.  It would run about a minute long, it’s funny, it’s quick, it’s clever, and it’s PG-13.  The best part is, is that I could probably shoot it in one day and edit it the next.  It’s a really simplistic and clever concept.  Maybe it will be something that I can pull off in between Do Nice Guys Finish Last and Project X.  I got the ball rolling on Project X.  Which needed to be done.  I looked at all of the information I had and just put it all together and sort of wrote out an outline.  Then I E-Mailed that to the script writer.  I’m excited to see how it comes out.  Also, I just got the new cut from Gabe, of Do Nice Guys Finish Last.  Needless to say, I’m glad that I suck at NHL 09 and that the computer saw it fit to destroy me.

So, the way this whole film festival thing works is that you sign up and pay the entry fee online.  They give you a confirmation number.  Then you ship them a copy of your short film on DVD or other format that they accept.  Printed on the DVD is the confirmation number that they gave you when you paid.  I have another DVD of Censored sitting around.  Should I send it to one more festival?  I’m still waiting to hear back from three others.  I was kind of hoping to spend money on Do Nice Guys Finish Last.  By the way Do Nice Guys Finish Last is going to be a pain in the ass to send out to festivals.  I was looking at some festivals the other day and for some reason I kept finding ones that had notes that said stuff like “We usually only accept films that would be considered PG-13.”  Do Nice Guys Finish Last is totally not PG-13.  I would say it’s probably R, if it’s anything.  It’s actually not that bad, there’s just a ton of bad language.  Really, there’s not that much bad language either.  There are a few f bombs here and there and one c bomb.  Censored I would say is PG-13.  It’s censored, that’s the whole point of it.  It looks like Do Nice Guys Finish Last might prove to be more difficult then I originally thought.  It’s an R rating and it’s going to run about 15 minutes long.  I’m sure I’ll find something though.  I’ll at least get it on IMDB.
I’m still really excited about the SoCal Film Festival.  There’s so much going on around it.  Apparently they are doing a few movie showings at the Huntington Beach Pier which is like 10 minutes from my house.  The fact that the festival is so close to me makes things much easier.  In the mean time though, I need to get to work on Project X.

You may have noticed by now, but I posted some out takes from the re shoot on Do Nice Guys Finish Last in the Shorts sections.  The Shorts section has now sort of become the Videos section.  Whatever works.  Really, who doesn’t like out takes?  One of my favorites ever is from a short film I did a long time ago called The Wake Up.  It was about two women who wake up in bed together.  One is straight and one is gay and they are both naked.  Of course I don’t show anything, but it’s implied.  Anyway, at one point both of the characters say “I’ve got a handcuff key in my bag” at the same time.  So, Kristen says it but the other actress, Jessica missed her line and didn’t say it.  Kristen without missing a beat says
“I’ve got a handcuff key in my bag and you didn’t say it, you God damned bitch!  I know you got one!”
I still have that footage somewhere.
The Wake Up isn’t posted here.  It’s not that I don’t like it.  It’s just that it was a very early short film in my film making “career.”  It was shot on a shitty little camcorder that I got on the Internet for like $200, the lighting, and color balance in each shot changes.  My directing skills weren’t quite there yet.  This was a really tough film for me.  I was a straight male writing about gay women.  I didn’t want to be offensive at all.  I wanted to tell a funny, kind of weird story.  Plus, finding actresses was tough.  It was a tough sell.
“Hey, I need you to appear to be naked, kiss another girl and fondle her a little bit.  Then I’m going to film it on a crappy little camcorder and possibly post it on the Internet.  O yeah, and I can’t pay you.”
After I did The Wake Up though, I realized that I could pull people together for anything.  The Wake Up has a lot of negatives, but there are some positives as well.  I think the beginning sequence is fantastic, some of the acting is great (I messed up directing wise a couple of times), and I actually really did like some of the cinematography.  I also think the story is pretty decent.  If I had written some better dialogue I think it would have been great.  This was only my second short film, so I think all is forgiven.  Here is the short film if you want to check out some of my early work.  You’ll also get a look at my very crappy 1st logo:
The Wake Up
Watching it again, I’ve actually changed quite a bit.  I wasn’t so biased about hand held camera work at the time and I actually kind of like it.  Maybe it will change my mind on how I feel about handheld stuff in the future.
 I started off talking about the out takes of Do Nice Guys Finish Last and ended up on a totally different topic all together.  That’s pretty typical for me.  Check out the Shorts section if you want to see the Do Nice Guys Finish Last out takes.

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.

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.