John Q. Phats Entertainment

My Absurdly Complicated Writing Process

Carl — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 21:47:33 +0000

Often how I write is a little out of order. Let’s say for example that I’m writing a 100 page movie. Often times, I’ll get to page 65, and then write something that corresponds with something that happened on page 25 that I haven’t written yet. So, I go back to page 25 and fill in the gap. I started doing that last night and realized how ass backwards that is. As unnatural as it seems, it’s the workflow that seems the most natural. I’m actually very excited about writing that scene tonight. I’ve built up a great moment of tension. My only problem is that I sort of like having these intense moments with no real payoff at the end of the scene. Nothing really cheesy like a cat jumping out of a trash can or some shit like that. I’ll give you an example. There’s a scene when Red Hood has just started becoming a vigilante. She’s walking through the park when she sees one of the main villains in the movie sitting on a park bench staring intently at a little girl. Red Hood freezes and isn’t really sure what to do. I draw it out for a bit of an awkward stare and then the villain just gets up and walks off. That’s it. Shit, looking it now, it seems pretty lame. O well, it’s a first draft. I guess the payoff is that later on in the movie the two have a big confrontation. I won’t give it away, but it’s kind of awesome.
I’m having mixed feelings about what I’ve written so far. Some scenes I think are amazing and others are beyond horrible. I’m just going to power through this 1^st draft and hope I can fix the parts I don’t like later. My page count should pass 80 by the end of tonight. I can’t confirm this, but I think this is the furthest I’ve gotten on the Red Hood script. I’m aiming for 120 pages. So, I’m getting there. I may send it off to festivals or I may send it off to producers. There’s a good possibility I’ll do both. I haven’t really decided what to do with it yet. I know that I still have a lot of work to do.

This is something that kind of bugs me. The final episode of True Blood won’t air this weekend because Monday is a holiday. What the fuck is that shit? Like the episode has a right to a three day weekend because it works so hard? I don’t even understand that. This is not the first time they’ve pull this shit either. They did it earlier this season and I was absolutely shocked when I checked my DVR and it wasn’t there. Here I was thinking “I get a three day weekend and a new episode of True Blood? This is going to be awesome.” I’m not sure what airing an episode entails, but I picture it as someone hitting a giant, basketball sized, glowing play button. It’s probably much more complicated then that, but still, screw this holiday shit. Jesus HBO, you may as well let the terrorists win.

P.S. Someone recommended that I boycott the final episode. Obviously, they are fucking stupid. That show is amazing and I’m sure the wait will be well worth it.

10 Different Movie Endings

Carl — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 22:34:27 +0000

Often, I think of something awesome. Unfortunately, the real world isn’t nearly as awesome as what goes on in my head. A bad ending can ruin a perfectly good movie, whereas an amazing ending can save a bad movie. Below is my list of 10 movies that could have benefited from the awesomeness in my head.
*Warning* There probably will be some spoilers.

1. Contact
How it should have ended: Upon the Alien meeting Jodie Foster and telling her that it took the form of her father, she should have said “That’s fucking stupid. Can we cut the bullshit and can you just look like an alien?” The alien changes and looks awesome. Upon telling her that it will be sending her back with no proof, Jodie Foster should have said “That’s what you think you ugly son of a bitch!” and shoots the alien in the head, dragging it back through the portal. Jodie Foster presents the aliens corpse. Makes a million dollars and the audience is treated to a rather awkward sex scene between Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey on a big pile of money and bibles.

2. Forrest Gump
How it should have ended: Jenny doesn’t die, Forrest Gump becomes a sex addict due to years and years of back up. He throws away all of his money making it rain at a strip club called Seventh Veil with Lieutenant Dan. Little Forrest starts seeing dead people.

3. Pan’s Labyrinth
How it should have ended: Just as the big war starts the Fauno leaps from the ground and rips Captain Vidal in half. He then goes on a rampage killing everyone in sight. He walks slowly in to the darkness as the credits roll.

4. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
How it should have ended: I’m not sure, but it has nothing to do with aliens or the consummate bachelor getting married.

5. No Country For Old Men
How it should have ended: I’m not sure there’s an ending in the original.

6. Speed
How it should have ended: In this movie, I see the perfect opportunity to screw with a lot of people. So when they try the video loop trick, it works perfectly. But the killer (Anthony Hopkins) sits on the remote by mistake, killing everyone anyway. He blows up the bus, Keanu Reeves, and all the other passengers. The explosion is shown from 17 different angles, Anthony Hopkins realizes what he’s done, giggles, and then the credits roll. Everyone sits in the theater till the credits are over absolutely shocked and annoyed at what just happened.

7. Jennifer’s Body
How it should have ended: They should have just stuck with the make out scene with the two girls until the credits. I would have been satisfied and that’s all that matters.

8. Titanic
How it should have ended: The ship hits the iceberg and jolts all the passengers. However, no real damage is done and the ship keeps going. Some old broad bitches to a waiter. Leonardo DiCaprio and Billy Zane have an awesome sword fight that lasts 40 minutes. Leonardo DiCaprio wins and gets the girl.

9. The Blair Witch Project
How it should have ended: They all get eaten by a bear.

10. Grizzly Man
How it should have ended: See above….. O wait.

Nightmares About Red Hood

Carl — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 19:38:10 +0000

I had a bad dream about one of the villains in Red Hood last night. This is a great sign. I want the villains to be memorable and intimidating. I got stuck on a bit of dialogue last night. But that’s ok, I’m sure it will come to me. Strangely, I’m starting to get ideas for Red Hood 2. Too soon? I could write it as one long piece and then just split it in half. Red Hood has a final destination. I know where she has to end up, I’ve known for awhile. Since the beginning, Red Hood’s ending has had sort of an open ending, leaving room for a sequel. So, it’s kind of like I’m writing one four hour movie. Red Hood would work just fine without a sequel. But that’s not what I had in mind. It was important for me to make it work on it’s own. One script is hard enough to sell.
I’ve come to realize that I really do enjoy writing. I’ll make an excuse to write anything. Like anything though it’s tough to get started. The only advice I can give to someone having this issue is to stop being a pussy and just do it. Write something terrible, who cares? You know how many horrible movies have not only been written, but actually made?
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls- Tons of money spent making it and I would say it was kind of a dud.
Contact- You wait the whole fucking movie to see the god damned alien and then it uses some stupid mind shit to appear as her father. Then in so many words tells her they’re going to send her back with absolutely no proof what so ever of her encounter for no God damned reason. I so wanted the main character to pull out a gun and shoot her alien father in the head at the end of that movie.
Death Bed, The Bed That Eats- Granted, this is one of those movies that’s so bad it comes back around in to awesome. However the fact that someone actually had to sell this movie to a producer and succeeded is un fucking believable to me. How the hell did that conversation go?
Writer: So, I got this script, it’s about a bed that eats people.
Producer: ……That’s really funny, seriously, what’s your script about?
If you ever need a quick pick me up head over to the IMDB Bottom 100 list. Rent some of them, you’ll feel much better about what you write from that point on. Especially considering these were all movies that were funded, produced, and actually made. Meanwhile you’re just writing, so who cares if you write something terrible?

Red Hood- 3 Pages Deleted- 1.5 Pages Written

Carl — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 05:13:14 +0000

So, I did it. I deleted the three crappy pages that I wrote on Red Hood and replaced it with 1.5 pages of awesome. It wasn’t so bad and I feel like I can move on from here. I sort of got stuck at the end of this last scene, but at least I left on a good note. I’m kind of excited, I get in to the really good stuff soon. It’s hard for me not to write something funny here and there. That’s ok to do in a horror.
Right?
Right, and you know why, because I said so and it’s my script. I mean, I’m not writing Schindlers List here, it’s an over the top vigilante flick. Let the audience have a little fun with it.  Either way, I’m having fun writing it. It’s great to finally get my idea on paper.
On top of my script updates, I would like to talk about the movie Real Genius. Apparently, they are doing a remake of it. At least that’s what it looks like via IMDB and various other internet sources. In celebration of this, I figured I would discuss the classic 1985 version staring Val Kilmer. Warning, there will be spoilers.
Mitch Taylor (Gabriel Jarret) is accepted to an insane program for geniuses, focusing around developing some ultimate bad ass laser. Mitch is all proper and shirt tucked in and shit. He is partnered with Chris Knight (Val Kilmer) who’s the type of guy that would show up to a math class in a bathrobe. When asked to do some crazy math shit, would yawn, scratch himself inappropriately, and then lazily stumble to the board and mathematically prove there was no Jesus while sending a text message. They didn’t have text messages back then, so I don’t know, he would send a Morris code? Fuck, who cares, you get the point. Anyway, hilarity ensues. Now in the beginning of the movie we’re lead to believe that Mitch is smarter than Chris Knight. We soon find out that this is total bullshit. While Chris Knight fucks beauticians, Mitch falls in love with some crazy OCD broad that power sands her floor at 3AM. In fact Chris pretty much does everything better than Mitch and he’s cooler.
Lets move on to Kent. Kent is the tool of the film and boy is he ever a tool. The only thing is, he’s not very threatening. I’ve never been able to take a grown man with braces seriously. Why nobody punches him in the face is beyond me. You can tell just by looking at him, he’s a little bitch. He wouldn’t do anything, he would just run off crying. Then when you passed him the halls his bottom lip would quiver and he would avoid eye contact. At one point they put an antenna in this guys mouth and through a microphone convince him they are Jesus. Here it is revealed that Kent masturbates. I could have told you that before that scene. That guy couldn’t get laid if he were a rug. Still, hilarious all the same though. After Mitch and Chris build the ultimate bad ass laser, after Kent fucks up their first one, cause he’s a dick. The bomb is dropped that the laser is actually being developed as a weapon! No shit?! I’m sorry, but I assumed it was a weapon from the beginning of the movie. What the fuck else are you going to do with a laser that blasts through concrete walls and statues and shit? You’re going to blow shit up with it. Mainly people. As you can imagine Chris and Mitch are pretty pissed about this.  So, they hack the Gibson (kudos if you understand this) and use the laser to pop a bunch of popcorn in the main bad guys house to the point where the house splits in half. Seriously, that’s what happens. It’s pretty awesome.
While I’m curious to see how they remake Real Genius, part of me want’s them to leave it alone. It’s a great movie as is. Who knows though, maybe the remake will be even better. It’s old enough and wasn’t popular enough for enough people to remember it. So, I doubt they’ll piss off much of a fan base if they screw it up. And really, I wouldn’t care if they screwed it up. The 1986 version would still be good.

An Update on Red Hood

Carl — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 18:46:52 +0000

A lot of people have asked me what’s going on with Red Hood. Well, I got to page 72 about three days ago, but got there via a shitty scene that I’m more then likely going to delete. This was very frustrating and still is. So, rather then correcting the problem I’ve been avoiding the script all together, because I’m regretting having to highlight three and a half pages and hitting the delete key. It just sucks to leave a script on a bad note. I should have just not slept that night and rewrote it right then and there. Rather then just leaving it because I was pissed that I wrote a terrible scene. I’m curious to know how other writers deal with writing something they aren’t happy with. They probably have a much better process then me. Any other writers out there have any tips or advice of what to do when you write a scene or anything that you really aren’t happy with? Comment below.

Me and Caine have split up the workflow rather nicely. I have an extremely specific vision in mind. Here’s the problem though, I’ve really only envisioned the cool shit. The kill scenes, the action sequences, the dark monologues, and the ending. Everything in between? Total blank. No clue what is going on or even what I’m doing. So, I stumble through some of the build up and set up. Caine on the other hand seems to have a crystal clear vision of all the gaps in my story. I’m not sure how, but he just seems to get it. He’s written the stuff that makes me stare at my monitor with a “not so bright” look on my face for twenty minutes at a time. I think that’s working out quite nicely.

You could say that writing this is part of getting over the discomfort of the task at hand. I’ll go home tonight, delete the scene and move on. Mainly because I’ve now looked at the positive and it really doesn’t seem that bad.

Other then this minor setback, it’s going fairly well. I’m not thrilled with every scene, but it just a first draft. My goal for the month is to have the first draft completed. I think I can pull this off.

Photograph taken and edited by awesome Alyssa Tucker.

The Heavy in True Blood

Carl — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 06:17:51 +0000

*WARNING*
If you have not watched True Blood, season 3, episode 33 don’t read this. It contains spoilers.
*END WARNING*
If you haven’t seen True Blood or listened to The Heavy, you should do both immediately. If you watch Episode 33, for a short amount of time, you could do both. How often do you find two awesome performances working so well together? You can imagine my excitement when I heard a song by The Heavy playing in the background of a scene in Episode 33 of True Blood. It was in the scene where Russel kills the male prostitute. Granted it was just background music, but still. It worked with the scene and it’s exciting to see The Heavy getting some much needed exposure in the US. I love it when that happens. When two of your favorite things at the time mix.
I’m not going to go too much in to detail about True Blood. I could write 4 pages on it easy. All I’ll say is that it’s a damn entertaining show. Plus I think I’m in love with Deborah Ann Woll. Allow me to explain this. I used to be in love with Milla Jovovich. I thought she was an awesome actress and she’s gorgeous. But, then I saw .45. Milla Jovovich is naked for probably about 30% of that movie. Well, that sort of killed it for me. The mystery was gone. I had seen it all. What else was there to wonder about? It wasn’t her fault, we just grew apart. For the longest time, I’ve been searching for a replacement for Milla Jovovich. Selma Blaire sort of pinch hit for about 3 months there. I’m sort of picky about which actress gets my love. It has to be a combination of amazing acting skill and sort of flying under the radar. I can’t love an actress that’s in the center of the hollywood stage, what the hells the point of admiring someone if they are surrounded by admiration twenty four hours a day anyway? That would be like donating a nickle to Bill Gates. I’m sure he would put up a front of appreciation, but really, he would be thinking you could go fuck yourself for wasting his time. And who could blame him? Deborah Ann Woll fits my strict standards. She’s amazing on True Blood and if you said “Deborah Ann Woll” at a party you would probably get a “Who the fuck is Deborah Ann Woll?” look from at least 8 out of 10 people. Then you would say “Jessica….. From True Blood.” And everyone would say “Ooooooooo.” So, Deborah Ann Woll gets my love. However, I’m not sure how long our love can last. Her popularity will skyrocket and then she’ll Bill Gates the fuck out of me if I see her in person and tell her I thought she was great on True Blood. Such a cruel world. Lets just try to enjoy our time together while it’s still here.

Switching gears here, I saw The Expendables. It’s pretty much exactly what you expect it to be. There’s some crazy ass fight scenes, shit explodes, hundreds of bad guys get shot, and there are tons of cheesy one liners. It’s pretty awesome. It’s the only movie that has the most terrible story line but is somehow still an amazing movie. Which doesn’t really make sense to me. How the hell do you go right by going left? Whatever, it works. Entertaining flick.

Paranormal Activity & Red Hood

Carl — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:32:52 +0000

I’m currently writing a horror type film titled Red Hood. So, I’ve been watching things that help inspire me. I rented Paranormal Activity last night and watched it alone in the dark. I’m hardcore like that. I know I’m about a year too late, but it didn’t really interest me when I saw the previews. There was a lot of hype when Blaire Witch came out and I didn’t really care for Blaire Witch. It was different, I’ll give it that. The only problem I can see with mixing the mocumentary and horror genre is at some point someone in the audience is probably going to ask “Why the hell are you still filming you fucking moron?” People tend to get pulled out of a scene if the characters do things that don’t seem real. Especially in a movie that’s trying to look as real as possible. Paranormal Activity had a little bit of that, but it wasn’t to guilty of it too often. It does suffer from the horrible fate that most horror movies suffer from. One of the characters is a complete moron. This character usually inflates his/her chest and then proceeds to have a dick measuring contest with all of the other more rational characters in the movie. This character does not react like real people would. Instead they do the exact opposite of what real people would do.
Most of the time, I’m somewhat satisfied when this character dies. Mainly because they pretty much deserve it. I actually really enjoyed Paranormal Activity though. The character, Mica is that annoying character. You spend most of the movie wondering we he’s such an asshat. A horror movie should put you on the edge of your seat and Paranormal Activity did that pretty well. The dead camera in the room was pretty genius. The fact that the camera doesn’t move just adds to the tension. On top of that, the time lapses were great. Time would speed up and then slow down. When the time slowed down, the audience knew something was going to happen. They had no idea what, but they knew it was going to be something. It was sort of a form of psychological conditioning. After the first scene like that the audience knew that time slowing down to normal speed meant something scary was going to happen. I really liked how time would slow down 10 – 15 seconds before anything actually happened. That just made it all the more suspenseful.
Paranormal Activity did a really good job of inspiring me. I cranked out about 5 pages last night in under an hour. That’s a pretty good pace for me. I find that the deeper I get in to this project the easier it’s getting. Caine is helping me write it. I’m not making things very easy on him though. I have a pretty specific vision in mind and I think it’s tough for him to match that. It would be tough for anybody.

If Writers Block Were a Person…

Carl — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 15:28:37 +0000

I’m sorry for the leave of absence everyone. I’ve sort of been stuck in writing. I’m not sure how this happened, but I seriously can’t think of anything to write. That doesn’t make for a very exciting blog. “Today, I sat and starred at a blank Final Draft document for an hour, then I watched The Simpsons and played NHL10 for 3 hours.” It’s hard for me to force inspiration, because my inspiration comes from all over the place. Sometimes a song can jump start things and sometimes it’s a commercial for maxi pads. True story by the way, I once wrote a short film based off of an idea that I got after seeing a tampon commercial. When I’m stuck, I’m not really sure where to go to unstick myself. I tried doing a writing exercise that’s supposed to help with writers block. It lead me to a wonderful place called Jack Shit Ville. It’s lovely in the spring. My problem is doubt. I’m doubting everything that I write. You start out excited about an idea and then all of a sudden doubt creeps in and then it’s a horrible idea.
Lately I’ve been watching a lot of movies and listening to a lot of music to try and get over this. I’ve watched some great movies. In Bruges was absolutely amazing and I was angry with myself for waiting that long to see it. With a mixture of that and some of the music I’ve been listening to, I think I’ve got something. I found this band because they have a song that’s in a Kia commercial and I thought it was a pretty awesome song. The CD is absolutely amazing. This isn’t the song that inspired me, but it’s what lead me to the band to begin with:

So, I will be writing something tonight and I’ll let you guys know how it goes.
By the way, I got accepted to the New York Film Academy Masters Program.

P.S. If writers block were a person, he/she would every annoying human trait imaginable.

The Do Nice Guys Finish Last Showing

Carl — Mon, 03 May 2010 23:13:04 +0000

The Do Nice Guys Finish Last showing was absolutely awesome. Aside from the weird guy that showed up that everyone feared was going to rape them. Other then that though, the entire thing went off without a hitch. I did a little Q & A after the short film which is always fun to me. While I’m nervous as hell in front of a crowd, I do pretty good. In my college speech class a girl made a comment on my speech that I get nervous and as a self defense mechanism, I start to tell jokes and try to make people laugh. Which she said works really well for me. I don’t get many compliments, so I have to hold on to whatever I can get. After the short film and the Q & A we had the theater for another 2 hours, so we watched Hot Fuzz. That movie is even more glorious on the big screen. I thanked Simon Pegg and Nick Frost via Twitter for Hot Fuzz but they never responded…. Fuckers. Just kidding. I’m sure those guys get at least a million tweets thrown their way every day. I got some good constructive criticism from Kristen Carter (Censored). She said it wasn’t long enough in some scenes and was too long in others and overall, it probably could have been shorter. I can agree with that. Nobody had anything horribly bad to say about it though. In fact when I told the crowd that someone told me it was the most offensive thing they had ever seen, I got quite a big round of applause. Thanks to everyone for that and for coming. It was insanely fun. I hope to see you guys at the next one, because there will be a next one.

P.S. I’m two rejection letters away from posting Do Nice Guys Finish Last online. Come on festivals, do the right thing, reject my ass. It has a narrow audience and it’s too long to program.

Do Nice Guys Finish Last Showing- Thoughts

Carl — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 02:25:19 +0000

I thought the showing went pretty good. Everyone seemed to be enjoying it and people laughed at all the right parts. I’ll post pictures tomorrow and go in to detail and all that.