John Q. Phats Entertainment

Gabe gave me the Do Nice Guys Finish Last color correction version.  It looked really good.  It’s weird to see it in a somewhat polished state.  Next we are going to work on the audio.  I’m still debating how much I want to do to the audio.  Part of me wants to clean it up completely and another part of me wants it to stay sort of rough.  Some aspects of Do Nice Guys Finish Last are polished and other aspects are left rough on purpose.  For example, the camera work was left rough on purpose.  The lighting was set up and polished though.  Mainly because we could do that and get away with it.  It’s one of those things that we can slip past the audience that would make it look a little bit better.  Audio is a big part of this.  I really do want the audience to feel like they are watching a documentary done by a bunch of amateurs.  But how far is too far?  Is keeping the audio somewhat rough forgivable here?  I’m going to have to figure that out tonight.  After the audio, we’ll probably do the transitions and then we’ll be done.  I already put the credits together so all I have to do is tack those on the end when the transitions are done and call it a day.  With credits, Do Nice Guys Finish Last will wind up being just under 16 minutes.  I can live with that.  I think for a 16 minute film, it’s pretty fat free.  I’ve seen short films that are 20 minutes that could have easily been cut down to 10.  I don’t think this is the case with Do Nice Guys Finish Last.  I think it’s 15 minutes, because it needs to be 15 minutes.  We cut a lot out that was in the original script.  Not just to get it under 15 minutes, but because the parts we cut out weren’t necessary.  If you can get the point across in 1 scene, then why show 2?  Or if you can get the point across in a scene that’s 30 seconds long, why would you show a scene that’s 2 minutes long?  Of course, I think this all changes when shooting a movie.  For a short film there is a totally different set of rules.  With a movie, you have time for a set up and you can take your time here and there.  With a short film there almost shouldn’t be a setup.  The characters should already be past the setup and on to the point of the short film by the time it starts.  For example, there’s a scene where Chris calls one of the girls and nervously asks her for a date.  We could have shown him pacing back and fourth nervously while biting his finger nails and starring at his phone, but why?  He makes it blatantly obvious by the tone in his voice that he’s nervous.  It would be taking twice as long to illustrate the same exact point.  As an audience member, I think it’s a little insulting actually.  If we had shown the pacing scene it would sort of be like:
“He’s nervous….  You see how nervous he is?  He’s really nervous.  Look at how he’s pacing, he’s nervous.  Man is he nervous.”
Kind of annoying, isn’t it?  I think, a lot of short films fall in to this trap.  The audience is smarter then you think.  They can figure it out.

So, I’m putting together the credits for Nice Guys Finish Last.  Holy Jesus, there were a lot of people involved in this thing.  The credits are like 45 seconds long.  Normally, my credits are like 10 seconds long, if even that.  I hate to say it, but I may need to cut them out for the festival cut.  I’m not sure if that’s going to be way too long to add to an already pushing it short film.  Getting a 15+ minute long short film in to a festival isn’t going to be easy.  Maybe I’ll send the judges a version without the credits and when I send them my screener, I’ll send them a version with credits.  That’s pretty shady though.  Maybe I just won’t count the credits as part of the film.  Of course, I could be wrong on the time estimation and the short could turn out to be 9 minutes long.  In which case, I wouldn’t mind adding another minute of credits to it.  Or I could be wrong in the opposite direction and it could turn out to be 19 minutes long and I would be screwed.  That actually happened to a guy in my film school.  Our finals were supposed to be around 10 minutes, his was like 22 without credits.  He wrote us an E-Mail 1 night before it was due at like 2AM that said “I’ve cut my short down as much as possible and it’s still 22 minutes long…….Fuck me.”  Film school was awesome, I made some pretty good friends there and produced Say Something while attending.  Which I consider to be a very polished piece.  I think Nice Guys Finish Last may surpass Say Something in the polish and overall wow sector.  Nice Guys Finish Last has some good production value.  We have a lot of different locations and one of them is a restaurant with extras and all.  I’m kind of an idiot to have sat on NGFL for this long.  I could have been submitting it to festivals months ago.  Apparently, that’s what I do now, I shoot short films and just forget about them.  That’s how I role.
You know, I seem to jump back and forth when it comes to genre.  After I shot Red Hood (horror), I shot Say Something (Romantic Comedy).  Then I went back to Red Hood again and now I’m doing Nice Guys Finish Last, which is a comedy, but I would not in a million years call it romantic.  It’s actually kind of the opposite of romantic.  You know what I’m missing?  Some raunchy comedy.  I haven’t done raunchy in awhile, it might be a bit of an overload.  The last time I did raunchy, was The Train Wreck, which was quite awhile ago.  That might be dangerous actually, it’s probably pretty backed up.  It would all come gushing out in a display of hysterical horribleness.