John Q. Phats Entertainment

So, I will be in Vegas this weekend accepting our award for Do Nice Guys Finish Last. It’s exciting to hear when someone else likes something that you created. Plus I’m kind of an ass and will bring it up as much as possible to brag. “Hey, you remember that time I won that award?” is now my new favorite quote.
Anyway, enough of that for now. A friend of mine did sound work on a documentary called 45365. Not only is it kicking ass and taking names in it’s festival run but it’s airing on PBS on December 14th from 10PM to 11PM. The film hasn’t had a DVD release yet, so it’s kind of hard to see. This is a great opportunity to check it out. So, be sure to watch it. On top of all of that Roger Ebert gave it a glowing review. (http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20100324%2FREVIEWS%2F100329984) I think that’s pretty cool. I’m pretty sure Roger Ebert has never seen any of my short films. If he did, we might be the first film to get a negative star rating. Just to be clear, I had absolutely nothing to do with this documentary, I just know the guy that did the sound design on it. You can check local listings for it here. If you want to learn more about the film, you can look it up on Google you lazy bastard. I’m just kidding, check the link here.

P.S. My spell check is broken, but that doesn’t matter because I’m awesome at speling.

I got an e-mail yesterday about Do Nice Guys Finish Last? winning an award at the Nevada Film Festival. To say that I’m shocked would be an understatement. I always knew that this short film was fighting an uphill battle. Not that it was bad, just that it was difficult. There is a ton of cursing, including a c bomb, and it ran kind of long at 15 minutes. I’m pretty sure it needed to be that long, but that’s a long short film. Oddly enough our film isn’t screening at the film festival, but we did win an award. Which is a little fishy to me. If this is a scam to get me to buy time share, I’m going to be pissed. We were one of four winners in the Short Film Competition. For anyone interested in attending the awards ceremony, here is the official website of the Nevada Film Festival:
http://www.nevadafilmfestival.com/General_Info.aspx
You can buy tickets to the awards ceremony here:
http://nevadafilmfestival.eventbrite.com/?ref=ebtn
While the website says that the awards ceremony is on the 3rd, it’s a filthy God damned liar. According to the E-Mail I got, it’s being held on the 4th at 10PM at the Rampart Casino at the Resort in Summerlin. Also:
“A special hotel discount room rate for attendees of the Nevada Film Festival will be available at the JW Marriott Las Vegas for only $109 per night.”
Looks like the JW Marriott is located at the Rampart Casino. So, that’s kind of awesome. I’m not sure if $109 a night is a good rate. I pay $0 a night because I’m a rock star and gamble like a champ. Not really, actually my Dad lives out there. Now, on to the thank yous:
To everyone who helped out with this and there are a lot of you. Thank you. We seriously could not have finished this short film without you. I think the most amazing thing about this short film was just how much everyone was on board. Usually there is at least one bad day in the film making process. Some kind of major catastrophe either in the editing room or on set. I can honestly say that there was not a single bad day during the entire production of Do Nice Guys Finish Last?. Mainly because of just how excited and positive everyone was and how on board they were with the project. There’s a little bit of style from each and every one of you in the film and to me, that’s what made this film so special. Thank you again.

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.

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.

I’m showing Do Nice Guys Finish Last tonight at the Art Theater of Long Beach for free. If you want to check it come on down. The show starts at 8PM.

So, either we have just 2 years left before the planet destroys itself or like the Y2K hoax nothing is going to happen and life will go on.  Either way, there’s nothing I can do about either of those so it’s time to have some fun and get down to business.  Unless of course John Cusack picks me up in a limo.  Then we can outrun earthquakes and lava.  That scene was absolutely ridicules and I loved every God damned second of it.  Just turn off your brain for movies like that, you’ll love them.  I liked that movie as a mindless action flick.  I got exactly what I expected.
With Do Nice Guys Finish Last all set and making its attempt at a festival run, I’m ready for my next project.  I plan to start 2010 right.  My resolution was to write a script whenever I get an idea.  I had way too many ideas last year that I’ve now forgotten because I never wrote them.  Sometimes they are entire long short films, other times they are just quick scenes.  I actually do really enjoy writing, but the hardest part is getting started.  So, no matter how bad or small the idea is, I am going to stop what I’m doing and write a script for it immediately.  We’ll see how that goes as I seem to get groups of ideas.  Hopefully I can keep up with myself.
Ellen Sandler is doing a seminar on January 23^rd in Los Angeles at The Writers Store.  I’m seriously considering going.  I really like her book.  Only thing holding me back is that it’s $150.  I could be spending that cash on my next short film.  Who knows though, this class might push me in another direction entirely.  For $150 I suppose I could find out.  I’ll keep you guys updated.  It could be a fun Saturday. 

Happy 2010 everyone.  Hopefully you all have a good year.

I said there would be some new footage by now.  As you can see there isn’t any.  I lie a lot.  I did write something though that I’m pretty pleased with.
I just got done watching the finale of Dexter.  Ho-ly shit.  Words cannot describe how good it was.  I’m going to bring this up, because I love Jennifer Carpenter, but that scene with her and Michael C. Hall where they are talking was one of many absolutely amazing scenes.  I know I seem to kiss her ass a lot on this blog, but she is fucking phenomenal.  I read a tweet by SHO_Dexter that they should just give John Lithgow the Emmy right now.  They really should.  Everyone who’s seen that show would probably be absolutely fine with that.  OK, I’m going to stop.  I hate the fact that I have to wait so long for a new season.  That ending was an absolute shock.  OK, I’m stopping.  While I could write a whole page just on Jennifer Carpenter, I think this is enough.
It’s tough for me to concentrate after that show but I’ll do my best.  My new script still needs to be revised, but I like it so far.  I’m going to try and commit some time to it every day.  I hold on to projects for way too long.  Or I lose interest or something and start working on something else.  See, I’m OCD and ADD at the same time.  I’m OCD about film making and stuff and I’m obsessed with it.  But my ADD makes it so I constantly get really excited about the next idea.  Only I’m not done with the first idea, so it doesn’t really work.  I need to focus on one project from now on.  Or maybe I just need to write constantly to keep up with myself.  I suppose that couldn’t be a bad thing. 
In other news, Do Nice Guys Finish Last got a fully operational IMDB page:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1561452/
They listed me as a stunt coordinator.  OK, whatever, sure, I’m a stunt coordinator.  It’s also listed as being in Post production.  Nope, it’s done.  Chris is on there and so is Caine.  If you go to my IMDB page, I now have two films listed there.  I’ve hit the big time now people.  It’s all smooth sailing from here.  In all seriousness, it’s kind of cool, but that’s about it.  It does sort of add to my legitimacy though.  I’ve had conversations like this before:
“So, you do short films?”
“Yeah.”
“What kind of short films?”
“Mostly comedies.”
“really?”
“Yeah, I’m on IMDB and everything.”
“O my God!  Really?!”
I don’t know why, but that’s sort of how it is.  Almost like they thought I lied to them or something.  I’m not a liar, it’s bullshit. 
Note: See title of blog.

Still plugging away at the festivals.  I’ve sent it out to five so far.  The last one was sent to Australia.  I thought that was kind of exciting.  I sent it to something called The Sexy International Film Festival.  A festival that focuses around sex and relationships.  I swear to God, they have a festival for every thing.  I’ve seen festivals focused around dogs, cats, homosexuality, ethnicity, religion, the environment, racism, sexism, and many other isms.  At least a sex theme festival is something that’s generally loved by the public.  Who doesn’t like sex of some sort?  Since DNGFL had to make a long trek to Australia, that required a visit to the local US Post Office.  Could there be a worse run organization without it just completely collapsing on itself?  There was this lady there who said they were holding a package for her.  Apparently they keep all of the packages in a giant disorganized pile in the back room.  Brilliant idea during the holidays by the way.  So, the attendant had to go to the back like 4 times to look through everything.  Each time she came back she told the lady “It’s not back there.”  After the fourth time, she found it and gave it to her, so the line could move forward.  I laughed out loud when I saw this.   Here’s the scary part about this though.  These are all government employees.  Essentially these are the same brand of people that RUN OUR COUNTRY.  You know how when you walk up to a postal worker behind that little window and they look like they should have committed suicide like a week ago?  Just how miserable they are and how much they don’t give shit if you get what you want or not?  It’s kind of funny if you really think about it.  Despite all of that DNGFL is on it’s way to Australia.  The reason I bring this up is that while in the post office I started thinking of a comedy revolving around the Post Office, but it quickly turned in to a drama involving suicide and drug abuse.  I bet I could turn that in to a comedy.  Overdosing can be funny if you shoot it right.  The movie Dear God has kind of an up beat theme to it, but after my experience yesterday I can assure you that it was %100 fiction.  It’s about a con man turned postal worker that decides to try and scam people that have written letters to God.  He inadvertently ends up helping them and when the other postal employees catch wind of this, they decide they want to help people too.  Hilarity ensues from this point on.  It’s kind of indication that the post office sucks based on the fact that they need the power of almighty God, just to turn it in to a feel good environment. 
All of that aside, this Saturday me, Caine, and possibly Chris are going to get together this weekend to shoot something.  So, I might just have some new short films up.  Nothing super fancy, but they might be funny.  Caine is funny, that’s pretty much all I have working for me right now.  Neither of us has written a script or thought anything out at all really.  All we know is that we’re going to have a camera, it’s going to be day time, and we are going to shoot something.  I’m stealing an idea from Six Finger Fist here, but what ever.  If anyone wants to give us a title for this new short film, leave it in the comments, and we’ll base our short film off of that title.  Why not, right?

I’ve started submitting Do Nice Guys Finish Last to festivals.  Maybe it’s just me, but the price of festival submissions has sky rocketed.  When I was submitting Censored I would come across an occasional $50 submission fee.  Most of them were in the $10-$35 range.  After submitting to three festivals it seems like $50 is the new $35.  I’ve found a couple that were upwards of $90+.  My first question is “Why?”  My second question is “What the fuck?!”  $90.  Do you know what that gets me?  Just a marginal chance to screen at a film festival.  Actually, I suppose that depends on how good your film is.  I do believe that Do Nice Guys Finish Last is at the very least a decent film.  It’s just that it’s over 15 minutes long.  I’m not very confident that it will screen anywhere.  Not because it’s a bad film but it just goes very against the grain.  The run time is a big factor and there’s enough cursing in it to make a sailor blush.  It’s got a C-Bomb in it.  That makes it kind of historical.  I believe this is the first film we have completed that has a C-Bomb in it.  Great job everyone, really great work.  I applaud us.  There really aren’t enough C-Bombs in film festivals.  It’s found it’s way in to popular cinema though. 
“Can I get any of you c***s a drink?”
- Nick Frost in Shaun of the Dead
“Your mother’s c*** stinks like carpet cleaner.”
-Mickey Rourke in Barfly
“Shut that c*** mouth or I’ll come over there and fuck start her head.”
-Ryan Phillippe in The Way of the Gun
“Respect the cock…and tame the c***. Tame it.”
-Tom Cruise in Magnolia

So, I’m not that off base here.  If anyone calls me on it, my first response will be “But Tom Cruise said it!”