John Q. Phats Entertainment

So, I’m doing programming for a film festival.  I’ve only watched like 5 films or so and I’m already getting another perspective on this process.  First off, I now completely understand  why every book I read said to make things as simple as possible for the programmers.  You want them to be able to see your tracking number on the DVD.  You want them to be able to put the DVD in a DVD player and boom, the film plays without them having to take any extra action.  They don’t give a crap that you have a fancy DVD menu and they don’t care about the name of your production company.  If they have to take any particular extra effort to see your short film, you’ve already put a bad taste in their mouth about your film and they are more likely to recommend a rejection.  I’ve read all about this, but now it’s even more apparent.  Of course, I’m pretty obsessive, before I sent Censored to any film festivals; I read about 4 books on how to do it. 
Speaking of books, I just finished How Not to Make a Short Film by Robert Marie Munroe.  It’s a very slick and handy little book.  Especially the end which has a pretty extensive list of film maker resources.  Some of her favorites film festivals, production websites, and even a section for film making blogs.  It pretty much has it all covered.  It was a good read.  I’m kind of wondering what I should read next.  Probably a book about either sound design or cinematography.  I’ve read a couple books on cinematography, but it’s an interesting topic.  I really should probably tinker with my camera more.  Just to see what kind of interesting shots I can get. 
So, I have a new goal.  I want to enter Do Nice Guys Finish Last in Sundance.  Will it get in?  Probably not, but who knows, I could get lucky.  Worse thing they can do is send me a rejection letter.  Most rejection letters are pretty soft.  Like:
“We regret to inform you that your film was not selected for our festival.  But we encourage you to enter it in other festivals and keep making films because everything is relative and blah blah blah.”
It’s actually kind of nice.  What if you got one that was really harsh one day?  Like:
“I could sit here and drone on about how you should enter this in to other film festivals, but I won’t.  I’m actually the programmer and I’m writing you this specially to tell you to please not make any more short films.  This was so bad, I seriously considered shooting myself 2 minutes in, so I wouldn’t have to live through another waking moment of this boring and horrible excuse for a short film.  I’m serious, I loaded the gun.  If I pounded on a keyboard with my forehead for 20 minutes straight, the jargon that followed probably would have produced a better script then this bile.  What I have just watched was by far the stupidest thing I have ever seen.  I am now dumber after watching your short film.  If this world were just, you would be killed in some sort of horrific camera accident.  I used to like film, I really did, but your film was so bad, I’m afraid I’ll have flash backs and tremors if I ever watch another film again.  Like shell shock from soldiers coming back from Vietnam.  I hate you.  Please kill yourself.”
That would probably never happen.  If it did, I might cry.  That makes me really glad that they do the things the way that they do. 
Tonight, I’ll be down near the Huntington Beach Pier for the SoCal Film Festival Movies by the Pier event.  If you’re in the area, stop by and say hello.

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.

I watched Postal last night.  First off, I have to say that I’m an incredibly tough person to offend.  Postal, at parts, was offensive to me.  Maybe it was the opening skit based around 9/11 in the beginning, or the full frontal on Dave Foley we got where he actually grabs his johnson to make it move around and then walks in to a bathroom and takes a huge dump.  That part wasn’t so much offensive as it was “O Jesus.”  By the way, I could tell that he wasn’t really taking a dump, that’s how close the camera was.  Maybe it’s just me, but I didn’t think the movie was all that funny.  At parts it seemed like it was offensive, just for the sake of being offensive.  There were some parts I laughed at.  At one point Uwe Boll is in the movie doing an interview and telling the interviewer that his movies are funded with Nazi gold.  I actually thought that was pretty funny.  Uwe Boll sort of poking fun at himself.  I can appreciate that.  Also, Verne Troyer and the glow in the dark dildo was kind of amusing.  On the DVD Uwe Boll included some fights from his event, Raging Boll.
Uwe Boll at one point told his critics that he would box them.  He selected some critics to box and then put some of that footage on the DVD in the extra features section.  Jesus tap dancing H. Christ.  Did he pick the most physically challenged critics he could find?  None of these guys looked athletic in the least bit and none of them knew how to throw a punch.  So, it was pretty much 20 minutes of Uwe Boll punching people while they tried to dance around the ring and not get punched in the face by a large, angry, German man.  I blame Boll for his poor selections of opponents.  But didn’t these guys train at all?  Didn’t they think “I’m going to be in a boxing match, maybe I should take some boxing lessons or something.”  Even if I was told that it was just going to be a light sparring session for charity, I would take some lessons, just so I know what I’m doing to some degree.  Some of them got a couple good punches in, but mostly it was just kind of sad.  Before each fight, some text pops up on screen telling you who Uwe Boll is using as a punching bag.  One of them read “[Name], A 17 year old Internet critic.”  So, pretty much Uwe Boll picked some 17 year old kid posting on IMDB or where ever to punch in the face.  Is that legal?
You know my thoughts on Uwe Boll, I talked about him a bit in my Bad Movies You Have to See article.  He makes the movies he wants to make.  The simple fact is, is that if you don’t like his movies, you don’t have to see them.  Although, I couldn’t tell you what possessed me to watch Postal.  I haven’t been a fan of his movies.  I suppose I was just curious because I heard it was so offensive and I wanted to see some of those boxing matches.  Uwe Boll is just an interesting character.  Almost like Howard Stern.  You remember when he first came out?  A lot of people down right hated him and wanted him taken off the air, but they would listen to his show religiously every single morning.  That’s kind of how Uwe Boll is.  A lot of people want him to stop making movies, but then they go to watch his movies.  It doesn’t really make sense.  Me personally, I don’t hate the guy.  I respect him for doing what he does regardless of all the criticism he gets.  I’m not a huge fan of his movies, but I guess some people are.  Which is cool.  Like I said, he’s just an interesting character.  I think it would be awesome to interview him.

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.

I should really probably do a press kit for Do Nice Guys Finish Last.  That term used to scare the crap out of me, until I actually saw a completed press kit for another short film.  All it really was, was a PDF with some information about the short film.  It talks about the cast and crew in it and has a detailed synopsis of the storyline.  That’s it.  It’s a very intimidating term though.  Press kit.  When I first heard that term I thought to myself “What the hell is that?”  Also the term “kit” implies that there are several aspects to it.  Like a First Aid KIT.  Usually it contains band aids, cotton balls, rubbing alcohol, ect…  So basically what my mind probably did was say “What the hell is a press kit?  O crap, I bet there’s a lot to that.  A lot of crap that I don’t know how to do.  Damn it.”  As if film making weren’t filled with enough tasks that you don’t know how to do.  For my first short film, I didn’t know my ass from my elbow.  You should have seen me trying to transfer footage from my camera to my computer.  It was kind of like watching a monkey try to figure out a rubix cube.  Now I’m dealing with all this Press Kit jazz.  It actually shouldn’t be that difficult.  I do work as a graphic designer after all and I do have a degree in it.  I’m starting to realize that when you’re done with a short film, you’re not actually done, done with it.  After editing is done, you start with a whole mess of other issues.  Not really issues, just jobs and tasks.  Organizing photo shoots, designing stuff, and distribution.  I always assumed that you just kept making films and releasing them.  But with the way things go, it seems like a lot of film makers make one or two short films and just ride it till they get a break.  I feel like I could enter Censored in 3000 other film festivals if I really wanted to.  I don’t really want to do that, I want to make new stuff.  I’ll be sure to take my time on Do Nice Guys Finish Last and do a press kit.  When I finish it, I’ll post it here for you guys to check out and then all 5 or 6 of you can tell me what you think.
P.S. If you’re curious about what a press kit is, I found a pretty good sample here.

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.

I went on a bit of a writing binge last night.  For some reason a script I had an idea for has been popping in to my head a lot.  So, I sat down and started writing it last night.  The whole entire thing has sort of a smart ass tone to it.  I meant for it to be a series, but it’s kind of shaping up in to a movie.  It’s called Dead Girl and it’s kind of fun to write because I haven’t planned anything.  I just sort of sit down and write what ever comes to mind.  I’m not putting any pressure on myself to make it spectacular.  I’m just writing it.  It would be nice to have a full on movie script.  If I were a script writer, I would submit scripts to festivals like crazy.  Printing a script out costs you maybe a dollar.  In fact, I think a lot of festivals will accept an E-Mailed PDF.  Which is no shipping cost, no printing cost, and more importantly no production cost.  Plus, I can’t think of a better way to get a script out there.  If I finish Dead Girl, I’ll send it out to every script writing competition I can find.  Why not, right?
Censored was rejected from the Gangrene Film Festival yesterday.  This is only it’s 2nd rejection and it really only brought me down for roughly 20 seconds.  Mainly because there are about a million festivals out there and if I really wanted to, I could probably get in to another 4 by next month.  However, my focus is on Do Nice Guys Finish Last right now, which honestly, will probably have a much higher rejection rate then Censored.  So, it’s probably a good thing to be developing this tough skin at this stage.  The first rejection letter I got, really got to me.  I was upset about it for like a week.  This time it was 20 seconds.  Maybe next time, I won’t feel a thing.  It’s not that I don’t think Do Nice Guys Finish Last is going to be great when it’s done, it’s just that it’s sort of fighting an uphill battle.  It’s 15 minutes long and very offensive.  That’s pretty long for a short film and I’m guessing that film festivals want to appeal to a wider audience, so they kind of attempt to stay in the PG-13 area.  It doesn’t really matter to me though.  We made the film that we set out to make.  Worst case scenario?  I have a short film that I’m proud of to post on my web site.  Plus, I still have the SoCal Film Festival to look forward to.
By the way, Gabe just threw (literally) me edit six of Do Nice Guys Finish Last.  I think this might be our final cut.  We’ll see.  I’ll have to check it out tonight.  I really want it to be our final cut.  The last edit had very minor changes in it.  So, I’m pretty sure it’s almost there.

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.