John Q. Phats Entertainment

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.

I entered Censored in to a film festival that makes it IMDB appropriate.  I didn’t realize that I didn’t have to actually be accepted in to the festival, I just had to submit my short film.  So, I get the E-Mail that tells me I can fill out the form to create an IMDB page.  I go to IMDB and start the process of filling this thing out.  It was the most unnecessarily complicated thing in the history of unnecessarily complicated things I’ve ever seen.  First off, every section (even the title) has it’s own guidelines page that’s roughly a page long.  Really IMDB?  Seriously?  We need an entire page explaining how to type in the title?  Are they explaining this from the point of your computer being off or what?
“OK, there should be a big power button on your computer, push it and wait for your computer to load.  Once it’s loaded, open up Internet Explorer, or Firefox, perhaps Opera, any Internet browser will do.  If you’re accessing this site on a cell phone, there may not be a big power button on the front of it.  That’s ok, just load up the browser.”
That’s what I pictured when I first saw it.  I found it hilarious, because if you were reading that, clearly your computer was already on and the browser was already open.  You see what I did there?  Jesus, I’m such a clever bastard.  Anyway, it’s actually rules and regulations behind each section.  It’s somewhat mind numbing.  By the end of it your like
“What the fuck?!  Am I disarming a nuke?!  I just wanted to type in the title!”
It makes you question everything about what you are doing.
“Did I type in the title correctly?  Does it meet all the guidelines?  It looks good.  Can I move on?  Is everything ok?  Where am I?!  What the fuck is going on?!  Who am I?!”
It makes you kind of afraid of the next section.  And when you get something wrong it like highlights it in red.  Which is just as effective as having a person stand there yelling
“You got that wrong you stupid asshole!”
So, after you fill everything out, it gets sent to a representative at IMDB to check over.  So I’ll probably get an E-Mail in 2 weeks regarding all the crap I filled out wrong. 
Currently, I’m waiting for responses from The Action On Film International Film Festival and Woodstock Film Festival.

It’s hard to believe this, but every time I do a short film I seem to have some sort of breakthrough revelation in terms of film making.  On Saturday we shot some more of Nice Guys Finish Last and I got my best take out of Caine when I just told him to do whatever he wanted.  I gave him some adjustments here and there along the way, but we didn’t get anything truly amazing until I gave him that freedom.  Caine is a funny guy, it’s one of his talents.  I should just let him be funny.  I told him at one point
“You’re a funny guy, go with it.”
To me, this is a breakthrough.  My favorite part about film making is working with actors, so this is a really exciting to learn for me.  Actors are fascinating people.  Acting is something that looks easy, but isn’t.  As an independent film maker, you often pull people from your group of friends when you need actors.  Most of them say the same exact thing too:
“I can act.”
They really do think they can to, it’s kind of adorable in an ignorant sort of way.  Then the camera gets on them, you yell action and they go blank.  Either that or they fumble over their lines, look at the camera, and giggle like crazy.  News flash, acting is really hard.  You think you can act?  Get about 6-7 of your friends, have them all stare at you, then, what you do, is cry.  Don’t laugh, don’t say anything to them, just cry.  Serious actors can do that.  I can’t do it.  I could with some practice, but I belong behind the camera, not in front of it.  Whenever I attempt to act, I just giggle like a stoned school girl.  If I were playing a stoned school girl, I could probably pull it off quite nicely. 
So, my breakthrough revelation this time is that I need to start a new career as an actor who plays stoned school girls.  Just kidding, really it’s that sometimes, all an actor or actress needs to act is freedom to do it.
The shoot went great on Saturday.  I transferred it all on to my computer today.  That’s always a fun process by the way.  It’s kind of exciting to watch all of your footage from a shoot while transferring it.  It’s kind of the moment of truth.  Sometimes, you see something that you didn’t pick up while shooting.  Like an obvious boom mic or the reflection of my stupid ass in a mirror or window standing there with headphones on, next to a camera man.  Stuff like that.  When something like that happens, you need to do pick up shots or fix it in post.  I fucking hate pick up shots.  They are such a pain in the ass.  I try to avoid them at all costs.  Maybe that’s why I always have so many takes of each scene.  Because, I want to make sure that I get everything right.  I think I hate pick up shots so much because on the last shot, when I say “That was the last shot, we’re done!”  Everyone cheers and it’s just an awesome feeling of accomplishment.  Everyone is all happy and anxious to see the first cut.  It’s almost like a graduation party for like an hour because everyone just sort of hangs out and congratulates everyone else.  When you have to do pick up shots, all of that is taken away.  And when you finish your last pick up shot, you don’t get the same response at all.  It’s more like “awesome, lets get the fuck out of here.”  A pick up shot is kind of like if tomorrow, you got a letter in the mail saying that you actually failed PE in high school, so now you have to go back in order for any of your college degrees to be valid.  O, and they’ve notified your boss of this so your job will be docking your pay until you finish the class.
Imagine what that would feel like.  That’s what I feel like whenever I have to do pick up shots.