John Q. Phats Entertainment

Yesterday, I sent Do Nice Guys Finish Last for it’s first festival submission.  It’s done.  It’s almost kind of hard to believe.  I’ve been working on this thing for so long and there have been so many mishaps.  Including one final one.  When Gabe burned it on to a DVD and I watched it, the credit music was missing.  When I told him the music was missing, he decided to add it right there and re export it.  I had emailed him the music about a week ago but I guess he hadn’t listened to it.  So, he decides to give it a listen before bringing it in to Premier.  Twenty minutes after he listened to it, he was still laughing at what a horrible selection I had made music wise.  He even brought over a friend of ours to laugh with him.  I couldn’t help but laugh myself.  He said the music reminded him of that song from the Legend of Zelda.  Yeah, I picked some shitty music for the credits.  It was royalty free though.  Here’s the thing, I am completely tone deaf.  I can’t tell the difference between a tuned guitar and my dick.  Seriously, it’s that bad.  Once when I was younger, I thought it would be a good idea to tighten all the little knobs on the end of my Dad’s guitar.  He laughed hysterically at how bad it sounded and I seriously, couldn’t tell the difference.  The five copies I have right now don’t have any music to go with the credits.  It’s probably better that way.  I should just stay away from musical selection all together.  The festival I sent it out to makes it IMDB appropriate.  I’m looking forward to that.  Now I’ll have two films under my filmography on IMDB.  I’ve thought about making like 10 short films, entering them all in IMDB qualifying festivals, and just submitting all of them.  That way, I can trick people in to thinking I’m a big shot.  Those short films would be incredibly stupid, but whatever.  I would probably get lazy really early and the titles would look something like this:
The Living Room
Dogs and Pillows
Walls
Chris Punches Himself in the Face
Chris Punches Himself in the Face II
Chris Punches Himself in the Face III
Chris Punches Himself in the Face IV
Chris Punches Himself in the Face V
Chris Punches Himself in the Face VI
Chris Punches Himself in the Face VII
You get the idea.  Anyway, DNGFL is DONE!  Thank God.  If it absolutely fails on the festival attempts I’ll be posting it here very soon.  I’ll let you guys know how it’s doing.

Gabe gave me the new DNGFL last week.  So, I take it to my house, import the .MOV in to Premier, carefully add my credits to the end of it, and then I export it.  Then I check the new, exported .MOV.  I watch it all the way through, even though my computer struggles through it because it’s like a 23 gig file.  It looks good.  I’m satisfied.  I burn it to a DVD and just for shits and giggles I throw it in to my DVD player.  It looks great, I’m happy, I’m talking to my girlfriend on the phone about how awesome it looks.  She’s happy, I’m happy, everything is great.  Then I yell out “Mother fucker!” because the credits come on screen and look all distorted and screwed up.  I sit in shock and disbelief.   tell my girlfriend I have to go.  I contemplate throwing my DVD player out the window.  Then I realize that it’s not the DVD players fault.  Then I contemplate throwing my computer out the window.  I realize that it’s not my computers fault.  No, this is the fault of this fucking short film.  Then I realize that I can’t throw it out the window because technically, it doesn’t have a physical presence.  My frustration grows stronger.  I guess I’ll just keep trudging on.  I’ve burned tons of short films and never had a problem with the credits screwing up like that.  Why now?  Why this short film?  Because this project is the devil, that’s why.

Stupid short film refuses to be finished.  Yes, we are still working on it.  No, I haven’t dropped off of the planet and I’m not dead.  We’ve been working on a new name for the company and a new logo.  It’s still in the early stages, but I think it looks pretty sharp.  No, I’m not just saying that because of our little argument over e-mail, Chris, you bastard.  I really do like the way it looks.
I really need to write something.  I want to rent an HD camera and experiment with it.  Even if I shoot something kind of lame, it would be fun to play with HD.  I’ll get right on that.  I’m also searching for a huge couch.  The biggest one I’ve found so far was 11.5 feet long.  That’s a huge fucking couch.  What the hell would you even use that for?  Seriously, think about that.  If you were on one side and another person was on the other, there would be roughly 9 feet between the two of you.  You could play a legitimate game of frisbee at that distance.  That’s about the size that I need though.  How do I get myself in to this shit?  How did I get to the point where I NEED an 11.5 foot couch?  O well, this is what keeps me going.  Keeps my imagination going.  I’m reading A TV Writers Workbook again.  Don’t get me wrong, that book is awesome, but sometimes it makes writing seem like such an intimidating task.  It usually explains its way out of it, but right in the middle of a chapter sometimes I’ll be thinking to myself “Shit!  I have no clue what I’m doing!”  I suppose that’s why you would read the book though.  So you know what to do to write a script. 
Quick list of what’s going on:
1. Still finishing Do Nice Guys Finish Last.
2. Looking for a giant couch.  Anyone know where I can find one?
3. Trying not to go insane.  

P.S. I’ve decided to curse on my blog now.  If Kevin Smith can get away with talking about selling tickets in an alley to pork his wife on Twitter, I can fucking curse.

I’ve been holding out posting till I was done with Do Nice Guys Finish Last.  But I’ve come to the realization that it’s never going to be done.  It’s just going to be that unfinished project that eats away at my brain and will one day be one of the factors that drives me to go absolutely insane.  I’m probably going to be crazy when I’m older.  My grandfather on my Dad’s side is pretty crazy, but he’s one of those indestructible bastards that will live to be like 140.  Despite the fact that his diet is terrible and he falls down every hour or so.  My Dad is probably going to be crazy when he’s older and I’ll be the one chasing after him making sure he doesn’t steal batteries from Radio Shack or try to carry left over soup home from a restaurant in a napkin. 
In all seriousness, DNGFL will be done eventually, it’s just that we are dealing with a lot of set backs right now.  If it’s not one issue it’s another.  Right now we are dealing with frame rate issues.  Our final came out jumpy, which means that something went wrong in exporting, which means that Gabe has to do the color correction again.  O well, I should be getting the somewhat final from him either today or tomorrow.  I still have to add the transitions and all that, but that’s no big deal.  That shouldn’t take me that long.  Either way, I’ll keep plugging away.  Maybe I’ll be done by the end of this week.  That’s a big maybe though.

Today should be the day that Gabe brings me Do Nice Guys Finish Last.  Then, I just have to make a couple changes to the credits and we are all set.  I didn’t realize it, but I’ve filled up my schedule with recent projects.  I’m doing editing for that guy that guy that does video game videos.  By the way, my After Effects endeavor last night was a total failure.  That’s ok, I’ll try again tonight.  I’m doing programming for that film festival.  I’m trying to finish up Do Nice Guys Finish Last.  I’m trying to write something else to shoot.  I should probably cut NHL10 out for about a week to catch up on everything.  Damn it, I really like that game.
Last nights episode of Dexter contained probably the best fight/kill scene of the entire series.  That’s saying a lot, because they are all really well done.  You know when you see something really good and for some reason your initial reaction is to let out a sort of nervous laugh?  Why is that?  Anyway, I got that when the fight scene started in Dexter.  That was followed by a “Holy shit.” 
I saw Where the Wild Things Are on Saturday.  The more I think about it, the more I like it.  It was really nicely shot and it was pretty well thought out and deep.  I liked the book as a kid, but the story line in it was really vague.  I think they filled in the gaps nicely with this movie.  Anyway, it was great, go see it.  I still haven’t seen Zombie Land.  I want to see that so bad.  Maybe I’ll check it out sometime this week and let you guys know what I thought.

I’m pretty sure we are done with Do Nice Guys Finish Last.  Not really though.  All I have to do is get the final from Gabe and add the credits.  I think what Gabe has to do is just put everything together.  It’s kind of hard to explain.  Right now, the color correction and transitions are on two different files.  I have no clue how he puts the two together, but apparently it will only take him like 5 minutes.  I’ve already finished the credits. 
The other day I heard that a friend of a friend absolutely hated Do Nice Guys Finish Last.  She thought it was offensive and depicted women as shallow.  I’m not going to lie, that’s a possibility.  I personally thought that the men were depicted just as shallow as the women.  If not more so.  Caine’s character is the absolute epitome of a sex crazed male idiot.  I more thought of it as a “what a stupid world” type of a statement.  Still, I’m always curious what other people think.  The other day someone told me that they liked Censored, but they didn’t consider it a comedy at all.  They considered it a bold statement on how censorship can strip everything human away from us.  How, if you censor us, there’s nothing left.  I thought that was really interesting.  She was absolutely shocked that I didn’t make that statement on purpose.  It was kind of an after thought, but when I sat down to write Censored, I wasn’t thinking that at all.  I told her friend to e-mail me.  I’m really curious what she thinks.  Everyone interprets things differently and I think I should take all those interpretations  in to consideration. 
So, I’ve finally started messing around with Adobe After Effects.  That is possibly the coolest program I’ve ever worked with.  I’m going to throw this link up here again because I absolutely love this web site:
http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/
I have no clue why this guy posts all these tutorials for free, but holy hell does this guy know his stuff.  On top of that, he’s great at walking you through step by step and explaining things.  I’ve started doing some work for a guy who does video game videos and I made this intro using one of the tutorials on Video Copilot.  Check it out:
http://www.vimeo.com/7013250
I thought about posting something like that here, but I don’t really think it would fit in the shorts section.

I think we are done with Do Nice Guys Finish Last.  Finally, right?  I say “think” because we may still have a little bit more work to do on it.  I’m still not sure though.  I tried to stick with that amateur film maker style and make the transitions simplistic.  They were simplistic, yet thought out.  I really liked it.  That short film has sort of grown on me.  I wasn’t really all that crazy about it when we had the first couple of edits, but I think it’s a funny short film.  I think I can get it in at least 1 festival. 
I’m reading a new book, A TV Writer’s Workbook by Ellen Sandler.  I haven’t really read that much of it, but I have to say, it’s extremely entertaining thus far.  I probably shouldn’t have expected anything less from an experienced writer.  She has all these great stories about her experience in the industry.  I’m going to do the exercises in the book.  I have a really hard time writing sometimes.  Plus I haven’t read a single book on it, so this works. 
I watched the first episode of Dexter, season 4 last night.  I wish I could have caught it on Sunday when it first aired.  That first episode was awesome.  That part where they altered the intro was great.  
Censored will be available in the Shorts section for viewing soon.  I figure it’s done with its festival run, so we can post it now.

Sorry about not posting yesterday, I was in a Benadryl induced haze.  It’s actually kind of fun being in that state of mind at work, makes the day fly by.  Some stuff to talk about, not much but a little.  The whole healing of my leg thing isn’t really going so great.  I thought I would be able to make it to the SoCal Film Festival last night, but my leg was killing me, so I decided to stay home.  I’ll probably have to stay home tonight too.  Sorry for everyone that looked for me on Tuesday.  As punishment, I’ll tell you the story of how I actually injured my leg.  It really does a good job of highlighting my stupidity.  On Saturday, I decided for the first time in over two years to drink.  This wasn’t really a planned out endeavor.  They were playing beer pong and it looked like fun.  So, I lost at beer pong.  Since I haven’t drank in over 2 years, I had the tolerance of an 11 year old girl.  I ended up getting trashed.  Apparently I stepped on my friends girlfriends face and somehow ended up on the roof of the house I was drinking at.  I wouldn’t have believed them if they hadn’t shown me pictures of both.  I also left a message that a lot of people laughed at on a co workers cell phone.  I actually found that kind if hilarious myself.  At one point, I get the brilliant idea to give a friend of mine a piggy back ride. 
“I’m drunk!  I can do anything! :flex:”
So, he gets on my back, he’s much bigger then me, which isn’t saying much, I weigh like 155.  So, then I get the idea that I’m going to run with him on my back.  I get up to a good speed and then I’m laying on the ground.  That’s how I hurt my leg.  I tore a muscle in my hip region so now I look really funny when I walk.  This wouldn’t suck so much if every 5 seconds someone at work didn’t say “O my God!  What happened to your leg?!”
I’ve been just saying “It’s a long story.  I hurt my leg.”  
They keep bugging me for details.  Maybe I should just make something up that makes them uncomfortable so they won’t ask for details.  Maybe:
“Vibrator malfunction”
would work.  It’s simple, could work.  Anyway, on with the show.
Do Nice Guys Finish Last is so close to being done.  The file is huge.  It’s like 25 gigs.  After Effects really added all of that.  I think it’s all the filters and effects we used for color correction.  Either way, we can deal with it.  We are so close to being done.  All we need is transitions and that’s it.  I already finished the credits.  Everything is all set.  It’s frustrating to be this close.  I still want to submit to Sundance. 
Every once in awhile YouTube has something of value to offer.  Not always, in fact almost never.  Most of it is some emo kid sitting in front of a web cam talking about Kanye West or Brittney Spears.  I found this great channel that has all sort so of film making tips and tricks.
http://www.youtube.com/user/videomaker
I’m actually kind of amazed that these are free.  Seriously, if these were available on DVD, I would probably buy them.  No bullshit, just straight up “You want to do this?  Here’s how you do it.”
I also found:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Mr360Games
Nothing really film maker wise, but I’m impressed with the video quality of his stuff.  For video game footage, that’s awesome.  Most of the time, especially on YouTube, it’s just a camcorder propped up in front of a television.  Lame.  This is actually high quality stuff.
I’ve also never mentioned this before, but being such a hockey fan this is probably my favorite web site:
http://www.battleofcali.com/
All those writers are hilarious.  They should write a hockey based script.  Seriously, they really seem to have a good grip on hockey culture.  I could see them writting something like the original Slapshot.  Vulgar as hell, but entertaining and awesome.

I worked on the audio of Do Nice Guys Finish Last last night.  Audio editing has always been sort of intimidating to me, but really, it’s not that bad.  I learned a cool little trick last night that Gabe taught me that made it much easier.  Whenever you want to raise the levels of a certain segment of audio, rather then actually adjusting it’s volume, just duplicate the portion of audio you want louder and match it up with its counterpart on another track.  If you have two tracks with the same audio, it’s twice as loud as it would be with only one track and it doesn’t distort.  I never would have thought of that.  That’s what I did last night.  I went through the audio and just made sure that it was all at a some what consistent level.  I was able to finish it all up.  I’ll probably go through it again to make some slight adjustments here and there though.
Up next is putting in the transitions.  I’m still not sure what direction I want to go with that.  I’m going to read up on transitions this weekend.  There are definitely things that need to be thought about when it comes to transitions in Do Nice Guys Finish Last.  There is one scene where the camera angle stays consistent, but there’s a cut and a lot of time passes in the story.  We need to have a transition that illustrates that.  Me and Gabe will be looking in to it. 
When I got home I played NHL 09 and absolutely got my ass kicked online.  Sometimes, people are just better then you at stuff.  You know, it’s easy to get a big head when playing against the computer for 3 months straight.  It did give me an idea for a short.  Mainly because it was comical how badly I was getting beaten and Caine is itching to do something.  It’s not that I don’t want to shoot anything, it’s just that I’ve been busy with other projects.  I also, really want to shoot in HD.  Maybe I’ll rent a camera next weekend or something just to play around with it. 
Again, I’m going to mention this:
The SoCal Film Festival is next week.  Censored is playing next Friday.  This will probably finish up it’s festival run.  I want to start sending out Do Nice Guys Finish Last.  I’m not sure if it will get accepted, but I hope that I’m underestimating it.  Gabe said he watched it again the other night and after giving it a rest said he actually thought it was really good.  When editing something, you watch it at least 100 times, it’s very easy to get bored of it.  I really think we are close to being done with it though.  Anyway, you can buy tickets to the Censored screening here:
http://www.socalfilmfest.com/tickets.aspx
Censored is playing in Program 10.  Be sure to buy a ticket for that program if you want to go.

Sorry for not posting for awhile, I’ve had a busy week.  I was on vacation in Minnesota.  I’m back now and there’s a lot to talk about.  We’ll start off with the light stuff.  Me and my girlfriend have been watching a lot of the second season of True Blood.  That show is absolutely awesome.  I hate to say this, because it seems like after Twilight, everyone is jumping on the vampire band wagon, but it makes me want to write a vampire short.  It seems like the hardest part of doing something like that is making it not look cheesy.  Why?  Because not making it look cheesy is either going to cost you money or time.  Possibly both.  I’ve done one suspense based short film and I wasn’t too happy with it.  That’s all right, it was a good learning experience. 
Programming for the festival is going nicely.  My biggest issue with short films is time.  People try and tell a story in 10 minutes that could easily be told in 5.  The longer a short film is, the more obvious it is.  First off, let me tell you, if you’re making a 20+ minute short film it had better be brilliant.  It’s an immediate flag to see a short film that runs over 20 minutes.  The first thought is “This could be really bad.”  Mainly because I would rather sit through a bad 5 minute long short film then a bad 20 minute long short film.  I’m pretty sure I’ve said this before, so I’ll just move on.
NHL 10 comes out soon.  The only reason I mention this is because NHL 09 already consumes a large portion of my life.  I’m not really sure what’s going to happen when NHL 10 comes out.  I may lose a lot of sleep, which means I might miss a lot of work, which means I might get fired, which means I can’t pay my cable bill, which means they would turn off my Internet, which means I wouldn’t be able to post here anymore.  This is the reality of the situation.  Don’t judge me, it’s not my fault, I have an addiction.  If they had a ten step program, I would probably be a prime candidate.  By the way, that reminds me of one of my movie quirks.  I absolutely hate it when you have people playing a video game in a movie and they are button mashing like crazy on the controllers.  Why not just have them play the game with the audio off?  Then record the audio of the game some other time and then insert that audio in editing.  You would think that would be something that directors catch, but I see it all the time.  I’ve shot a couple things with people playing video games and every time I’ve been able to work with the audio and make it look like the actor/actress is actually playing the game.  Or you just record them playing the game with the audio on from the angle you’ll be cutting to that actually shows the game and then use that audio.  It’s really not that difficult. 
Moving on, we should be done with the audio for Do Nice Guys Finish Last possibly tonight.  We’ll see, I may not be able to tonight.  It would be nice to finish it up.  Vacation kind of put a stop to everything.  I really want that done by the end of next week.  As soon as it’s done, I’m going to send it away to 6 festivals.  Might get rejected, might not.  Either way, I’ll keep you guys all updated on what’s going on with that.
There are big things happening with JQP Entertainment itself.  We may have a new name soon.  Which means we would have a new web address.  I would actually probably keep this same design and everything, the only thing that would change would be the web address and logo in the upper left corner.  Actually this web address would probably link to the other one, so really there wouldn’t be that much of a change.  We are changing the way we do things and we all agreed that a new name is necessary.
I’ll probably be mentioning this every post from now until then, but the SoCal Film Festival is very close.  I’ll more then likely be attending every night, either with someone or alone.  It’s so close to me, it seems like a waste not to.  It kicks off Monday, 9/14/2009 but Censored isn’t playing until Friday.  Again, you can buy tickets here:
http://www.socalfilmfest.com/tickets.aspx
There’s just a lot going on with JQP Entertainment right now.  Way more then I can probably mention in this post.  I’ll let you guys know as new things come up.