John Q. Phats Entertainment

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.

Last night, I made a very bad decision.  I started to paint my ex room mates room.  As always I started with a coat of primer.  So, I’m going around the room and all of a sudden, I get the brilliant idea to paint the inside of the closet.  About 5 seconds in to this endeavor, I realize that I’ve made a horrible mistake.  Somehow, the builder of the house managed to put more corners in that closet then in the entire house.  I think it took me like 2 hours alone, just to primer the closet.  Stupid closet.  For $550 a month, my next room mate could have probably dealt with an unpainted closet. 
Every time I paint, I can’t help but think of the possibilities of turning a room in my house in to a set.  It would just be way too easy.  I have this space available with walls begging to be painted.  I could paint them any color I want.  With low budget film making, you don’t always have that option.  You usually have to deal with the color the wall already is.  I’ve always wanted to do a very art direction esq short film.  Something where every shot has clashing colors or the entire film has a specific range of color.  I actually didn’t even know that they did this, until I read the Grindhouse book.  Robert Rodriguez was talking about the colors that he chose for Planet Terror.  When I watched Planet Terror again, I started to notice it.  I always thought French cinema had great art direction in them.  Every single French film I’ve seen has been very artistic either in story itself, costume design, or background design.  Of course, you mention French cinema and the first thing that comes to most people’s minds is Amélie.  I like Amélie, it’s a great movie, but there is a lot more to French cinema.  Angel-A or  The Diving Bell and the Butterfly are both awesome films.  Ok, I’m done with my French cinema rant.  As I mentioned yesterday, color correction for Do Nice Guys Finish Last is done.  I was either going to work on the audio for it yesterday or paint that room.  I was really hoping to work on the audio but Gabe was busy that night.  I don’t expect the audio to take me that long.  I’m not really looking to do anything fancy.  I want to keep it sort of rough, to fit in with the amateur documentary feel that we are going for.  Things have been crazy lately, but I really want to get to work on my next project.  For my next project I really want to use a rack focus.  I’ve actually thought up scripts that would require the entire thing to be shot with one shot while we rack focus back and fourth between like 3 characters.  That’s either an awesome idea, or a horrible idea.  I haven’t decided yet.  Either the audience would all go “Woooooow” or it would just give them all a massive headache.

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.

For those of you that went to the movie thing last night in Huntington, you may have not seen me.  I had a bit of an emergency that I had to deal with so I couldn’t make it.  Sorry if you showed up to say hello and I wasn’t there. 
Last night in being a programmer I got to the good stuff.  These are the films that make me look at my work and think to myself “What the hell am I doing?”  Two especially absolutely amazed me.  There is some great stuff out there.  I already knew that, but I always welcome a good reminder.
I’ve been working on my resume to look for work on a film crew.  Of course, me being a graphic designer I have to make it incredibly complicated and fancy.  What actually started as a work project has evolved in to part of my resume.  I’ll post it when I’m done with it for you guys to check out.  It should be quite glorious.  I’ve also been hard at work on the press kit for Do Nice Guys Finish Last.  It’s kind of fun.  Right now I’m just trying to get the information down, when I’m done with that, I’ll make it fancy.  I’m very tempted to design it like it’s a bunch of scrap paper Chris (main character) scribbled his ideas on.  Why not, right?  I think it would work.
The deadline for Sundance is coming up.  I’m probably going to enter Censored.  Will it get in?  Probably not, but what the hell, right?  If I can get Do Nice Guys Finished Last done on time, I’ll enter that as well.  My hopes are, that Do Nice Guys Finish Last is much better then I think it is.  Not that I think it’s bad.  In fact, I love that short film, I just don’t think it’s all that festival appropriate.  Hopefully, I’m wrong, festivals love it, and audiences laugh so hard, their stomachs hurt.  As I’ve figured out though, it’s very easy to become delusional about how funny something you and your friends think something is vs what the public thinks is funny.  Often times, something you and your friends think is funny, isn’t really all that funny to other people.  Many groups of people I’ve met have told me that I could just put a camera on their friends and have comedic gold.  Have you ever told a really funny story, only to have the person you’re telling it to stare at you with a blank stare?  It usually ends with you saying “Well, I guess you had to be there.”  It’s kind of like that.   
I still haven’t seen Inglorious Bastards.  I want to see that movie so badly.  Maybe I’ll check it out tonight.  Right now, I’m going through all of the movies that I should have seen already, but haven’t for some stupid reason.  For example, I just watched The Shining last week.  Jack Nicholson was a creepy looking bastard.  Even in the beginning, when he’s acting all normal, he’s freaky looking.  With age, I think he became less creepy.  In As Good As it Gets he wasn’t all that menacing.  His character was kind of a prick and he sort of looked the part.  Maybe he’s just that amazing of an actor.  His actual demeanor alters his appearance.  Or does he just pick roles that fit his look at the time?  It’s tough to say.  Either way, the guy is an amazing actor and often times, I’ll watch a movie just because he’s in it.  I always thought Keanu Reeves was good at picking his parts.  He’s not an amazing actor, but the roles he picks fit him so well, he can almost pull it off.  For example, The Matrix.  Could you think of anyone, who could have played Neo better then him?  I think he was absolutely perfect for that role and it’s hard to believe that he wasn’t the first choice to play that character.  Think about it?  Lonely computer hacker, limited social skills, finds comfort with computers, not sure of anything really.  He pulled it off.  Same with The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Devils Advocate.  Again, not really an amazing actor, but all of those roles fit him very well.  It works for me. 
I went off on a bit of a tangent there.  I tend to do that.  I could probably spend days talking about movies and once I get going it’s tough to shut me up.  Anyway, sorry again for not showing up at the SoCal Film Fest Movies by the pier thing, I’ll be sure to make it out to the next one.

Yesterday, while delivering something for work, I saw a sign that said “Dexter” with an arrow on it pointing in the direction I was going.  I stayed on course and just kept going.  Then I had to make a right and there was another sign, right before my turn with an arrow pointing to the right.  I still just kept going.  Then I saw an arrow leading in to a parking lot that said “Dexter Crew.”  My first thought was “no freaking way.”  On my way back from my delivery I stopped off in the parking lot just to see it was true or not.  Low and behold, there were several wardrobe and equipment trucks parked near the back.  I didn’t run on set or anything or even get out of my car.  I just wanted to confirm that they were shooting my favorite TV show of all time a stones throw from where I was.  I drove back to work and then went back to the place again on my lunch break this time determined to talk to someone.  The first person I saw was a security guard.  I asked him if they needed any extras, or extra crew or anything.  He said no, so I got in my car and went back to my stupid job.  So many thoughts went through my head before I approached that security guard.  What would I have done if he said yes?  Would I have called my job and told them I wasn’t coming back from lunch?  Absolutely.  What if they had said that I couldn’t do that?  Would I have let them fire me?  Probably.  After my conversation with the guard, a million other thoughts hit me.  Why am I not applying to work on crews on weekends?  What the hell am I doing here?  Here’s where it gets a bit stalkerish.  On my way home from work, there were basically two routes I could take.  One that drove me right past the Dexter shoot and one that didn’t.  I fully intended to just go home, but something made me drive by one more time.  I wanted to give my card to somebody.  Even if it was just the security guard.  So, I approached the same security guard once again and after telling him I was sorry for bothering him handed him my card and asked if he could please hand it off to someone.  He told me he would.  Several things could have happened here.  The most likely is that it went to the security guards pocket and that’s where it stayed.  It will be there until the security guard either washes his pants or empties his pockets and throws it out along with some gum wrappers and receipts.  Another possibility is that he did actually hand it off to someone.  Where it’s now sitting in their pocket until they wash their pants or throw it out along with some gum wrappers and receipts.  This is pretty likely as well.  The unlikeliest of scenarios is that he did hand it off, the person he gave it to looked at it and thought to themselves “Maybe I’ll give this guy a call.”  Or maybe they took that card and filled it under “P” for Psycho.  I have to say, going there for the third time did make me feel a little bit like a stalker.  I wasn’t disruptive or anything though.  I didn’t try to break on to the set or talk my way in.  I wasn’t trying to steal any wardrobe, I was really just looking for an opportunity.  An opportunity to see how a big time production operates and to help out with that.  Dexter is my favorite show, of course I would take any long shot chance presented to me to work on it.  On my way to the Dexter shoot after work, I couldn’t help but think that it was fate.  That maybe something would come out of it.  It doesn’t end with that security guard though.  I think this was a wake up call, that what I want to do is right in my backyard and all I have to do is try.  What are the odds that I would have to do a delivery that day and that my delivery would pass right by a shoot of one of my favorite shows of all time?  Fate or not, it was a wake up call for me.
On to other things though, right?  Just because I passed by a Dexter shoot in my car doesn’t mean my world stops.  Last night I was up pretty late getting some screen shots from Do Nice Guys Finish Last.  I’m trying to put a press kit together.  I got about 40 screen captures for it.  Here are a few of my favorites.  Keep in mind that these are pre color correction:
       
I think they look pretty good.  I really like that behind the scenes one with the clacker.  I just think that’s a really cool picture.  The press kit is well on its way.
An update on the Censored showing at the SoCal Film Festival.  The festival has an updated list of which program has the best ticket sales.  Censored is in Program 10 and Program 10 is listed as third.  Clearly that’s all because of me.  The six or seven visitors my site gets must have gone to town on those tickets sales.  Again, here is the info of where you can buy tickets:
SoCal Film Fest Tickets
Censored is playing in Program 10 on Friday 9/18/2009 at 7:20 PM.  It should be a good time.  There are lots of other short films playing there.  I’ll definitely be there. 
Sooner then that though, I’ll be down near the Huntington Beach Pier this Thursday to watch Finding Nemo at the SoCal Movies by the pier event.  Partially to try to get people to see Censored, but mainly because that event sounds kind of awesome.  Stop by and say hello if you’re in the area.

I finished up watching season one of True Blood last weekend.  Really awesome show.  I’ve also been watching Dexter, Season 3.  Is it possibly for that show to be any more awesome then it already is?  Every single season I expect that show to be not as good as the previous season and that doesn’t happen.  It’s very strange.  Somehow, none of the characters are getting stale at all.  It’s just strange, because the show goes against everything that I know.  Jennifer Carpenter is amazing on that show.  She plays Dexter’s sister.  She was also in The Exorcism of Emily Rose.  She played Emily Rose in that movie and there are a couple scenes where she goes insane.  She nails it.  The first time I watched that movie was with a friend of mine that never shuts the hell up.  Between the two of us there’s some sort of constant noise at all times when we are together.  I think the only thing said throughout that entire movie was “…..O shit.”  She’s really good at playing afraid.  While she’s been great in what she’s done, I’m sure we haven’t seen what she can really do quite yet.
Still waiting on the color correction for Do Nice Guys Finish Last from Gabe.  I did get an update from the SoCal Film Festival.  Apparently they are having a competition to see which program can sell the most tickets.  I’m not really in to all of this competitive stuff.  Now go buy some tickets so my program can break in to the top 6.  Again, Censored is playing in Program 10.  You can buy tickets here.  Dooooo it.

The search for a mascot continues.  Current discussions focused around what exactly the mascot would mean and why I was doing this.  We also discussed squirrels and mice as possible mascots.  Wow, that all sounds so official.  I suppose this is part of me taking a break after finishing filming for Do Nice Guys Finish Last.  I usually do that.  I wish I didn’t have to, but it does make everything more exciting when I start on my next project.  I have been writing here and there, but I haven’t really worked on anything major.  I really want to shoot in HD next.  I keep telling myself that once I get an HD camera that shoots 24 FPS I’ll be good from then on.  I know that’s not the case though.  As I have said in previous posts, I’ll always be chasing some new billion dollar thing that does something better then my current equipment.  I like to consider myself a budget friendly film maker.  I usually make what I have work.  That doesn’t really come out of ingenuity though, it’s more of a necessity.  Like when we built the jib arm for Red Hood.  I could have rented one for $2500, but I didn’t have that kind of budget.  So, I built one for just over $100.  It worked and now I have a jib arm.  Building stuff is always a cheap way out.  Plus, it’s kind of interesting to see what Gabe can come up with.  Or some random guy who posts blue prints on the Internet.  We built a steady cam off of the Internet.  We called it the Raminator.  It worked pretty good.  It’s kind of heavy and weird, but that’s kind of the point.  It’s supposed to add weight to the camera at a lower point to help stabilize it.  It worked for what we wanted to use it for.  Back to my original point, the mascot.  The mascot has to do with changing the name of the company.  Also, I want something kind of fun to put at the end of the credits that people will remember.  That’s pretty much it.  I really thought that there was more to it then that, but I guess not. 
Gabe tells me that the color correction for Do Nice Guys Finish Last is tedious, but he’s making progress.  Once the color correction is done the transitions will be a snap.  The credits are all ready to go.  So, we’re not too far off.  There’s not that much color correction to be done.  For a lot of the scenes, Gabe stuck with one camera.  It just flowed better that way. 
I watched a bunch more of the first season of True Blood last night.  Awesome series, but I stand by my belief that vampires are dicks.  I also got Dexter Season 3 on DVD earlier this week.  I’ve only watched the first episode, but holy shit that show is awesome.  I can’t stand watching shows on TV, I have to wait for them on DVD.  I think it’s the cliff hangers that really aggravate me.  There have been a couple times in True Blood, where if I wasn’t able to go to the next episode immediately, I would have lost my freaking mind.  Same with Dexter, although Dexter usually has a pretty good ending to each episode that leaves you satisfied.  Heroes plays the cliff hanger game a lot.  The worst by though is Lost.  I watched season 1 on DVD and decided to watch season 2 on television.  Every single episode I watched ended with me yelling “Jesus Christ!  What the fuck?!”  I only watched like 4 of them before I finally gave up and just waited for the DVD’s.  The thing with Lost is, is that they show you a preview the week before and you’re excited to see this one thing in the preview, then you watch it, and of course, that one thing is at the end of the episode.  But then that’s all it is.  There’s no explanation of it.  It just sort of happens.  Then you have to wait for an entire week to see every ones reaction to that one thing, which is what you wanted to see last week.  Season 5 comes out in December and I’ve been keeping up with it.  I love that show, I think it’s great, but screw those writers.

So, a couple things are happening.  First of all the name of the company, John Q. Phats Entertainment is changing to JQP Entertainment.  I might shorten it even more to JQP Ent.  The main reason for this, is that John Q. Phats Entertainment is too hard for people to remember.  People ask me what the name of my film making company is, I tell them, and they say “…..What?  How do you spell that?  What does that mean?”  I imagine 5 seconds after they walk away from me, they completely forget the name of the company.  Where as JQP Entertainment, is easy enough to remember.  All you have to remember is three letters and then “Entertainment.”  JQPEntertainment is also the web address.  So that works out better for us too.  With our new name comes a new logo.  Looking at other film making companies, they all have these insanely complex logos.  MGM for example.  It’s an actual picture of a lion.  Or the View Askew logo.  It’s an animated drawing of Jay and Silent Bob.  Even Universal has a pretty intense logo for their opening credits.  It’s a rather detailed world.  So, I want something like that.  Something cool and sort of like a mascot.  At first I had thought of a lion.  I have sort of a fetish for simplistic logos, so I came up with this:

I think that lion has a big nose and I thought I needed to step away from that simplistic thing.  Besides that, it’s looks very stupid.  So, I had Chris draw me a lion.  Here’s what he came up with:

His is much better then mine.  Chris can draw.  I’m completely useless at drawing without a computer.  That’s beside the point.  Now we’re thinking that a lion is probably a bad idea because a lot of other companies already use lions.  I don’t know, what do you guys think?  Here were some of the animals I thought might work:
lion, beaver (tee hee), penguin, badger, racoon, giraffe, or gopher.  Any other ideas, anyone?
It’s true, it has nothing to do with the name of the company, but what the hell does a lion have to do with MGM?  Who knows, maybe we’ll come up with something else.  Chris says he has some ideas.  I like the idea of the mascot having a head that’s way too big for it’s body.  My animals are all kind of fluffy.  Maybe we need something tougher.  Like a wolf or a polar bear or something.  I don’t know, we’ll figure it out.  This was all brought on by Do Nice Guys Finish Last.  I want to do the Press Kit, but I need a new logo to put on the front of it to represent JQP Entertainment.  I’ll keep you guys updated.

We’re done cutting Do Nice Guys Finish Last.  Now it’s on to working out all of the little kinks.  Color correction, audio adjustments, and transitions.  It feel like an accomplishment to have cut it.  It’s come a long way.  From 18 minutes to just under 15.  Me and Chris talked about it this weekend and we’re not expecting it to get in to any festivals.  I think we established that from the beginning though.  It doesn’t make it a bad short film.  I think it’s a great short film.  I should say, it’s going to be a great short film.  There’s still a lot to work on.  I still am very surprised by how much you can get away with in the mockumentary format.  You don’t need a tripod, it doesn’t matter if there are mistakes here and there, and actors can stumble over their lines and get away with it.  It’s a fun format, but I think I’m going to be moving on to the next thing now.  I don’t see another mockumentary in my near future.  Although, it has changed my opinion on hand held camera work.  Even though we didn’t use a tripod we still got some really nice cinematography.  Maybe I’ll open up and use it in my next short film.  My main problem with it was that in short films it became a “style.”  I’ve heard film makers asked why they went hand held on their entire short film and they would say “That’s just my style.”  No, that isn’t you’re style.  %90 of the time it’s because they were either too lazy or low on cash to use a tripod.  I’m totally cool with both of those excuses.  But to cover it up with this rouse of “That’s just my style” is pretty lame.  Call it what it is.  I know low budget films don’t have access to fancy dollies or equipment.  But there are ways around that.  I feel like I’ve put cameras on everything.  Wheel chairs, roller blades, office chairs, at least 3 different home made dollys, carts, ect…  Whatever works.  Am I total hypocrite for shooting Do Nice Guys Finish Last all in hand held?  Probably, but that was my style, so piss off.  In actuality, I wanted to shoot all in hand held, I chose to shoot all in hand held, and I left my very awesome tripod at home on purpose.  Do Nice Guys Finish Last is a mockumentary, which means that it’s essentially a fake documentary.  In this case, I felt like hand held was necessary.  I really tried to think of how an amateur documentary film maker would film something like this and that’s why I chose to go all hand held.  Basically, I was trying to mimic the style of someone who didn’t know what they were doing.  Which actually was a lot of fun.  Kind of like when we built the murder chair for Red Hood.  That was a blast.  We built the entire thing out of wooden pallets.  What was awesome about it was that we got to put our selves in the place of how the main character would build something like this.  It was a total hack and slash job.  When something wasn’t holding we either attached another piece of wood to it with about 6 screws or we just tore it off and started again.  We figured the main character wasn’t a carpenter and she didn’t need it to look pretty.  It was purely functional.  I actually have a picture of it:

It’s not pretty, but it’s functional.  You can sit in it, it will support your weight, but it’s absolutely not comfortable.  This was a chair that the main character used to torture people in, so none of that really mattered.
I kind of strayed from my original point, but whatever.  My point is that sometimes bad camera work or shady craftsmanship is called for in a film.  As long as the audience knows it’s intentional.  With hand held, it’s very difficult to make it look like it was necessary and very easy to make it look like you as a film maker were just lazy.  That’s not to say that I haven’t seen films that were well done all in hand held.  I just feel like that “style” is extremely over used because it’s an easy out.
I saw two movies this week.  District 9 and Ponyo.  I’ll start off with Ponyo.  Ponyo is an anime movie by Studio Ghibli.  A guy named Hayao Miyazaki did Ponyo and he has somewhat of a cult following.  In fact Studio Ghibli itself has somewhat of a cult following.  I went in to the theater not knowing anything about the movie.  All I knew is that my girlfriend really wanted to see it.  I’ve only seen one other anime by Hayao Miyazaki and that was My Neighbor Totoro.  My Neighbor Totoro was an acid trip.  Much like Ponyo, only Ponyo seemed to be catered more for children.  I suppose My Neighbor Totoro was for kids too, but for some reason it seemed darker.  I’m not even going to begin to try and explain the story line to Ponyo.  You probably wouldn’t believe me anyway, if I did.  It’s just one of those things you have to see.  I thought it was great.  If I was a parent, I would roll up a joint, smoke it in the mini van on the way to the theater, buy three packages of milk duds in the lobby, and go away to the land of Ponyo for 4+ hours.  The movie is only 2 hours long but I would be sitting in the theater after the credits rolled either asleep or absolutely out of my freaking mind based on what I had just seen.  It’s probably a good thing I’m not a parent.  Awesome visuals in Ponyo and a story line that made me say out loud “Who the hell thinks of that?”  It’s incredibly imaginative and unique.  But you don’t need to be high to enjoy it.  I enjoyed it and I wasn’t high at all.  If I was high though it probably would have been a life changing experience.  Just know what you’re getting in to.  It’s an anime catered towards children, that’s an acid trip.
District 9 was absolutely awesome.  I loved that freaking movie.  I am totally going to see that in theaters again.  I’m a sucker for the horror sci fi genre, so maybe I can’t give the same opinion as the everyday movie watcher, but I thought it was great.  I was entertained throughout that entire movie.  The actors were all phenomenal in it, the cinematography was great, the special effects were awesome, the story line had me hooked from the very beginning, and the characters development throughout the story was amazing.  If you’re in to this sort of movie, go see it, it’s awesome.

You know you’re done editing when you feel like if you watch your short film one more time, you might have a mental break down.  It’s mainly just frustrating because we are so close to being done with Do Nice Guys Finish Last.  I made my notes on the 5th cut last night and I was seriously considering telling Gabe to just start on color correction when he was done making the edits.  But, I can’t do that.  You know why?  Because when it’s done, there will be one tiny thing that irritates me that could have been fixed in 2 seconds if I had known it was there.  However if I do look at the draft before we get in to color correction, nothing will be wrong with it and it will be fine.  That’s just how it goes. 
So, about a week ago, a friend of mine is telling me about her good friend that shot a documentary on 5 of these cameras.  She didn’t know what they were called, but she told me they were the newest and best digital cameras out there.  So I said
“Ask you’re friend if I can borrow it for like a week or so.”
She laughed and I laughed but then I said
“I’m serious.”
So, she did and from what she told me he laughed, said no, but admired me for asking.  Works for me.  It was worth a shot, right?  Imagine if he had said yes?  I would have had access to a really awesome camera.  For free.  It never hurts to ask.  You would be surprised at what you could get for free by just asking.  Not that I’m a greedy beggar or anything, but when you’re making films anything you can get for free, you probably should. 
District 9 comes out tomorrow.  I’ve really wanted to see this movie ever since I saw the previews.  It looks a little bit like Cloverfield, which I thought was pretty good.  District 9 looks awesome.  I love these sort of creepy sci fi pictures.  I’m not sure what really draws me to them.  I’m not a sci fi or horror film buff, but for some reason this sort of combination is usually something I really enjoy.  I’m probably going to check it out this Sunday.  I’ll let you guys know how it is.
In a totally unrelated topic, Tropic Thunder was an awesome movie.  I have been quoting that movie all week and laughing just thinking about it.  Tom Cruise was hands down the most entertaining I have ever seen him in any movie he’s ever done.  Every single time his character was on screen I laughed my ass off.
“Now I want you to take a step back… and literally FUCK YOUR OWN FACE!”
Robert Downey Jr. kills it in that movie too.  The
“I’m a lead farmer mother fucker!”
line always cracks me up.  Maybe because it’s just so damn cliche action movie.