John Q. Phats Entertainment

I’ve been doing a lot of research for my next project.  It’s a big opportunity, so I want to make sure I get it right.  One thing I know for sure, is that I want to shoot it in HD.  That creates a whole mess of problems.  For starters, I don’t have an HD camera.  Kind of hard to shoot in HD, when I don’t have an HD camera.  Second of all, I’ve never shot in HD before.  I’m not sure how the camera is going to differ and what problems I’m going to run in to.  Third of all, I don’t have the money to rent or buy an HD camera.  Again, does anyone have like $5000 I can “borrow”?  By borrow, I mean have.  I could try what some guy did like a year ago.  He took a bunch of pictures of a cute rabbit and put them up on a web site.  Under the pictures basically said that he needed a certain amount of money and that if people didn’t donate it to him, he was going to kill and eat the rabbit.  I remember one of the lines was “I swear to God, I will eat this cute little rabbit.”  Under all of it was a pay pal link where people could donate.  Shit, I almost donated, because I thought it was hysterical.  He even had a picture of the rabbit in a frying pan.  I think he made like $60,000 or something like that.  All I need is $5000, I mean how hard could it be?  I suppose it’s time to start thinking about what I can sell.  Sigh, goodbye possessions.  I’ll miss you.
Gabe is making good progress on Nice Guys Finish Last.  I would say he’s about 30% through.  Which is pretty good considering that he got the project late last week.  It sounds like he’s putting a lot of thought in to it.  We’ll probably change some stuff around.  That’s just how it goes.  This film making thing is kind of bullshit if you really think about it.  This is my analogy of your chance of making it in this industry:
Lets say there were 1000 cups.  999 of them have ”NO” printed on the bottom of them and 1 has ”YES” printed on it.  Lets say you had to find the one with “YES” on it.  And lets say you happened to pick the one with “YES” on it.  Inside that cup there would be a pebble with a random number from 1-10,000 on it.  So, you take that pebble and put it in a random drawing with another 9,999 pebbles all with different numbers.  In that drawing, they happen to pick your number.  Great, now you get to throw a basketball at 4 nets from full court blind folded.  If you make it in to the correct basket, you get to search the entire world looking for a golden Cheerio.  And it could be anywhere.  Even buried 3000 feet below the Atlantic ocean somewhere.  Somehow though, you find out they cheated and put it on the moon.  So, you go to the moon and get it, when you get back you take that Cheerio and find out that you have to play ring toss with it on a toothpick from 400 yards away.  Through some act of God, it lands on the toothpick and now you get a 2% chance at making it in the industry because come to find out, about a million other people all did the same exact things you did, faster, better, and cheaper. 
Really that’s probably an exaggeration, but you get the idea.  In truth, I love making short films.  Weather I’m shooting them on my cell phone or on a $10 billion dollar camera.  When I say “I want to be a film maker” it doesn’t really make sense, because I already am a film maker.  I’m not making money doing it, but I would do it for the rest of my life, even if I was making minimum wage doing it.  Hell, I do it now, and most of the time, it costs me money.  But I don’t do it for the end result, I just do it because I love it.
I’ll keep making them, as long as someone is watching them.

My trip to NYFA was nice.  The tour is a lot like the Universal Studios tour only without the shark popping out of the water and all of that.  But, they literally drive on the same road as the Universal Studios tram does.  It’s free and at the end you get a free New York Film Academy t-shirt.  NYFA is impressive to say the least.  They are hooked up with Universal, so they get pretty special treatment.  They get access to the Edith Head wardrobe and prop department which is basically Universals wardrobe and prop department.  They get to shoot on some of the Universal back lots for student projects and they have all the standard camera equipment that you would find at an actual studio free for students to check out.  I got my first look at the infamous Red camera.  It doesn’t really look all that impressive without the lenses and everything attached to it, but it’s probably the closest digital has come to film.  Their library has the entire Criteron Collection available for professors only.  They also have somewhere around 1,200 DVD’s and screen plays that students can check out for free whenever they want.  Seriously, New York Film Academy is on top of their shit.  It seems like a great school and tuition is very reasonable.  I actually took a 12 week course there and the instructors were all awesome as well.
Only thing is, I don’t know what it will get me.  The guy who runs the masters program told me that it would get my foot in the door.  Are there any other ways of getting my foot in the door?  Probably.  Don’t get me wrong, New York Film Academy sounds amazing, but I think I’m going to explore other options first.  I’m going to keep trying this rogue film making thing for another year.  Only I’m going to try and get my name out there more.  I’ll enter more film festivals.  If I’m nowhere after that, I’ll apply for the masters program at New York Film Academy.