John Q. Phats Entertainment

Censored is back up in the shorts section.  Along with its fancy new laurels.  I think the Censored festival run is over.  It had a good run.  I would have really liked for it to screen out of the country.  Of course, I didn’t really submit to any festivals in other countries.  But I at least would have like to get it out of state.  That’s all right.  Maybe Do Nice Guys Finish Last will break the California borders.  We’ll see.
Being a programmer for a film festival, I have a whole new outlook on how to submit.  When submitting Censored I made one mistake, which actually is forgivable.  I showed the name of my company before the film started.  The blunt truth is that when watching short films as a programmer, I don’t really care what the name of the company who made it is.  I’ve never heard of this company and there’s a 99.999999% chance that I’m going to forget it 3 seconds in to the film.  I read a lot of books on how to submit to a film festival and I was happy to realize that I got everything else right.  My festival ID # was always clearly displayed on the both the DVD and the DVD case.  Along with the run time of the short film, the DVD region, the name of the film, and my name.  Also, my film didn’t have a DVD menu with only one option.  You put it in to the DVD player and it starts.  After programming I can also see why I got some rejection letters.  It’s good to see the other side of everything and it gives me an opportunity to correct some of the mistakes I’ve made.  After all this programming, it’s become even more apparent that it’s all about the story.  If the story sucks, the short film sucks.  You can have Oscar winning actors and jaw dropping cinematography, but if the story is some rehash of an idea that’s been done a million times or it’s just a shitty story, I’m unimpressed and so are other people.  This next bit is a little random.  Please, for the love of God, don’t start your horror short film with the killer or crazy person or whatever making a montage of pictures they’ve taken of their next victim or their victims.  In fact, avoid the making of the picture montage scene all together.  It’s been done about a gajillion times and it’s sort of lost it’s shock value at this point.  I’m sure you can come up with something much better anyway.

First off, I would like to apologize in advance for this one.  I went on sort of a Harry Potter binge this weekend and watched all five movies over the course of two days and my brain is a little scrambled.  I can’t believe that after five movies, Ron still hasn’t made a move on that Herminy (did I spell that right?  Don’t really care.) chick.  Christ man, what do you need, a written invitation?!  Also, there’s clearly not enough drug use for this to be a movie about a bunch of kids.  Although, I’m convinced that, the divination teacher has got to be on something.  I wonder if there’s a deleted scene where she’s smoking out Dumbledore?  In all seriousness though, for what they are, those movies are amazing.  They are all really well done.  Pretty much every aspect of those movies is at the very least, great.  Anyway, sorry again.
In my last post I talked about an old short film that I did titled The Wake Up.  It really got me thinking about my first short film, Firework De La Muerte.  What a pile of crap that short film was.  It was roughly an eight page script with the same joke told four times.  Really, the joke wasn’t funny the first time and it sure wasn’t funny the 4th time.  For that one we shot in a department store which shall remain nameless, without asking anyone.  We just sort of got somebody with a red shirt and went with it.  That was gorilla film making to the extreme.  To be honest, nobody really cared.  If I was an employee making minimum wage, I don’t think I would really care either.  I think the worst part about Firework De La Muerte is that when it was done, I thought it was great.  But then when other people watched it, they didn’t laugh.  At first I was in denial.  Like there was something wrong with everyone else.  Finally, I realized that it really did just suck something awful.  It was kind of a slap to the face.  But it was necessary.  I remember the first time I watched it, without my head up my ass.  I just sat there watching it in absolute shock at how bad it really was.  After watching it, I actually said out loud.
“O my God……  That sucked.”
There is no place to see Firework De La Muearte, nobody will ever see it.  It belongs in the depths of a hard drive, where nobody will ever find it.  I think I might of actually deleted it off of my external hard drive.  I do still have the prop firework though, made of cardboard, that egg crate stuff you put on a mattress, and duct tape.  The prop was actually kind of glorious, I have to say.  It was a giant somewhat rocket shape covered in duct tape.
While Firework De La Muearte is an awful short film, it really was something that I needed to do, to get where I am.  Now, Censored is playing in festivals all over the place, I’m close to finishing Do Nice Guys Finish Last, and I have a lot of big and exciting projects on the horizon.  This sort of leads in to my next topic.  I finished up fancy new laurels for Censored:
      

Technically, the SoCal Film festival hasn’t happened yet, but we have been selected.

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 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 got an e-mail from the Action on Film Film Festival going over all of the nominations for the various awards they are giving out.  I swear to God, there has got to be like 50 awards.  Each award has 5 nominations.  I have no clue how many short films they are showing, but I guess it’s a lot.  So, I’m looking for Censored on one of these lists and don’t see it.  Not one.  I did feel better though when I realized that it’s mainly like 10 or 15 short films listed 5 times for each award.  I suppose that makes sense when you really think about it.  If a short film is nominated for best picture, I imagine it did a lot of things right, so I suppose it’s not weird to see it listed as a best actress nomination and best cinematography.  It makes sense.  If there was a category for “Best Short Film with a Censorship Bar” I would have nailed that shit.  That must have been a nightmare figuring all of that out.  I’ve come to the realization that Censored isn’t an award winner.  I came to this realization when it played at the LA United Film Festival.  It had a couple parts that got a good laugh out of the audience but I know I can do better then that.  There’s a lot that could have been improved.  The lighting could have been better and I was still trying to figure out the boom mic when I shot it.  So the sound quality isn’t really all that great.  At one point, I thought Censored was brilliant.  I still think the concept is strong, but I probably could have executed it a little better.  O well, on to bigger and better things.  Maybe Nice Guys Finish Last will be an award winning film.  If not Nice Guys Finish Last, then maybe the next one.

So, there’s a lot to talk about today.  First off, I’ve finally transfered all of the footage for Nice Guys Finish Last this morning.  I’ve just been lagging on it, mainly because the pile of tapes I had to tranfer was freaking huge and intimidating.  Check it out:

Next to my Dexter Bobble head.  I didn’t realize it, but Nice Guys Finish Last took 17 tapes.  I’m working on something big right now and I can’t really devote any time to editing, so Gabe is going to pick this project up again.  It should be a fairly fast editing job.  It’s pretty straight forward.  I totally forgot how funny the script for this film was.  I was looking at some of the footage and it’s pretty damn funny.  At one point Chris says that the movie Wild Things sucked.  Which I felt bad about at first, but really it’s not me saying it sucked, it’s the characters.  I don’t think that movie sucked, it’s just a funny subject to me.  They released that movie on BluRay.  I don’t know if that was really necessary, but I bet they sold a couple million copies.  I know at least 20 people that would pay $25 to see Denise Richards and Neve Campbell get it on in true high def.  There is a ton of totally unnecessary nudity in that movie.  Some of that nudity includes a full frontal on Kevin Bacon.  Totally unnecessary for Bacon to be nude for that scene and completely unexpected.  It’s just like, BLAM, Bacon dick, full serving, right there.
 
How many times, has Kevin Bacon shown his dick on film?  I remember in Hollow Man, we got a thermal read out on it in a couple of scenes.  Weird thing to me, is that Kevin Bacon was a producer on Wild Things.  So, I would think that he would have a big saying in weather his wang was shown on film or not.  Makes me think that it was his idea.
Kevin Bacon: You know what I think this scene needs?  Bacon dick.  That’s right.  USDA, choice, tender, and delicious Bacon Dick. 
Director (John McNaughton): ……I don’t think that’s really necessary.
Kevin Bacon (serious): Bacon dick is ALWAYS necessary.
Director: ……Yeah…….  No.
Kevin Bacon: Welp, I am producing this movie so, I’ll just cut your payment in half then.
Director: ………..Camera, go ahead and get a close up on Kevin Bacon’s dick then we’ll do some wide shots and a slow motion capture.  Can we get some lighting over here please!  I’m getting a weird shadow on his left nut!
Kevin Bacon (smiling and nodding): Oh yeah.
That’s how I imagine it went down.  It’s too bad that the things that go on in my head aren’t nearly as awesome in reality. If I were Kevin Bacon, that’s how I would be.  I would use this pick up line everyday of my life
“What up ladies?!  I got two of your favorite foods in my pants!  I got Bacon and I got….Well, you know what I’m talking about.”
Maybe
“You want a little BACON with that shake?!”
I’m going to stop to be polite to you.  Anyway, I don’t think Wild Things is a bad movie.
Bacon dick aside, Censored was accepted to play in the Action on Film Festival.  They haven’t nailed down the date of when it will be playing, but you can buy tickets here:
Buy Tickets to the Action on Film Festival
Just follow the links, you’ll figure it out eventually.  If you look on that list, you’ll see Censored listed there.  There are a ton of films and it looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun.  I’m still waiting to hear back from four other festivals.  I’m pretty excited.  Anyway, I’m off for now.  I’ll keep you guys updated.