John Q. Phats Entertainment

I am extremely behind on my entertainment quota for the week. I haven’t watched any movies, seen the new episode of Dexter or really watched or worked on much of anything since my last post. I told myself that I would work on something tonight. But as you can tell from searching the archives, that’s usually a bitter lie. I’m working on a couple of scripts right now and both of them are at sort of exciting stages.
When I last left Red Hood, she was in the tail end of a bloody battle. I always wondered what fight scenes in actual movie scripts looked like. Does the writer describe each punch and kick? Or is there just some sort of text alluding to a fight scene? Or is there something that references another document (maybe a video) that describes the fight scene in detail?
The following is a small passage from a fight scene in Kill Bill:

“INT. HOUSEWIFE’S NICE HOME – DAY
The white woman and the black woman FLY into the center of the living room, CRASHING onto her coffe table in front of the sofa.
These two wildcats go at each other savagely, TUMBLING OVER the couch, clawing and scratching all the way, landing together on the plush carpet.
The HOUSEWIFE
KICKS The Bride, sending her CRASHING backwards into the small table where the phone, a note pad (for messages), and the mail is kept.

The Housewife scrambles up on her feet, but is caught by a

FLYING TACKLE from behind by The Bride that sends them both into……..
An ornamental iron and tempered-glass bookcase that has framed family photos, display toys, some African art, and a collection of painted commemorative plates depicting the negro experience in the American military. Starting with a plate featuring Cripis Atkins in the revolutionary war, negro troops in union blue during the civil war, Buffalo soldiers fighting Indians, the Jim Crow troops of the first world war, the colored troops of world war two, Korea, Vietnam, and finally Colin Powell….The Bride and The Housewife CRASH THROUGH all this reducing everything to rubble.”

I have to admit, the detail in this is kind of intimidating. Tarantino spends more time describing the surroundings then the actual fight itself. It’s sort of a mixture of describing it kick for kick but leaving it very open for interpretation. This is probably the best way of doing this. I’m guessing Tarantino did it this way because he wanted to leave certain aspects of the fight scene open to the imagination of those helping out on the project, maybe a fight coordinator or a stunt person or maybe even the actors. Or perhaps he just didn’t really care that much about certain details and wrote whatever the hell he wanted. He talks about kicks, but doesn’t really go in to much detail about it. What type of kick is it? Where on her body does she get kicked? I suppose these details don’t matter. We know the action and what the result is:

 “The HOUSEWIFE
KICKS The Bride, sending her CRASHING backwards into the small table…”

Perhaps that’s all you need. But I guess every writer has to find their own way of doing things. As I stumble through my Red Hood fight scenes, my only hope is that I can write something that others can read and make sense out of.
All this talk of fight scenes has me thinking about where I left Red Hood. I’ll probably finish writing that scene when I get home.

Machete comes out this weekend. It’s good to see that the Tarantino’s and Rodriguez’s have found a pretty legitimate market for their “over the top” brand of action flicks. Inglorious Bastards was amazing, plain and simple. I was thrilled to see it included in the Academy Awards for a best picture nomination. Even if there were like twenty nominations that year it’s still nice to see that this type of film has a pretty respected place in Hollywood. For those of you that don’t remember, Machete started out as a fake trailer at the beginning of Grindhouse. Watching it, I laughed, but I also leaned over to my friend and said
“That looks like a bad ass movie.”
I’m still kind of shocked that something that borders on ridicules holds its own so well. I along with just about everyone that I know is excited about this movie. You’re not supposed to take it seriously, nobody is. Who could take a man strapping a machine gun to the front of a motorcycle and jumping through the air firing it like a mad man seriously?  But that’s the fun of it. It doesn’t have to be, it just has to be cool. Motorcycles are cool and machine guns are cool. So, you combine the two and get something fucking awesome. To top it off, you arm an absolute bad ass of epic proportions with a billion machetes and set him loose on a bunch of bad guys. I’m willing to bet that at least three limbs get chopped off and probably a head or two.    
Movies like Machete and Grindhouse are a reminder that Red hood has a place in this world.  Red Hood isn’t realistic and at times it’s pretty ridicules.
I probably won’t get much writing done this weekend as I don’t have access to a computer that has Final Draft on it. It will give me a chance to think about what I’m going to write next and a chance to reflect what I’ve written so far.
I’m probably going to check out Machete either tonight or tomorrow.  I’ll let you guys know how it is. My prediction:
“Fucking awesome.”

Today Gabe might have the color corrected Do Nice Guys Finish Last.  We’ll see what happens.  It will either be today or sometime, early this week.  After color correction we’ll be working on transitions.  I don’t think that will take us too long.  Then we’ll do some slight corrections in audio.  I’m really not too concerned about the audio.  Mainly because I want it to have sort of a rough feeling to it.  Like an inexperienced boom mic operator was just chasing people around not really sure what he was doing.  It fits for this short film and I actually think it sort of adds to it.  As long as I’m aware of it, I think it’s ok.  I’m very excited about being done with Do Nice Guys Finish Last.  I always have a hard time telling everyone to just wait for the edit to be done.  I hate telling people to wait for us to be done editing.  Editing takes a long time and nobody except for me and Gabe sees the progress.  Of course, I can talk about it and post screen shots.  But you can’t really show anyone the short film until it’s done.  It’s a little frustrating, but I’ll live.
I saw Inglorious Bastards yesterday.  I loved that freaking movie.  I thought it was great.  You never quite know what you are going to get with Quentin Tarantino.  That’s what I like though.  His style is always changing and evolving, but his movies always have that Quentin Tarantino feel to them.  If you showed me a 100 unreleased films and one of them were a Quentin Tarantino film, I could probably tell you which one was the Tarantino film without looking at the credits.  Whenever I see a Quentin Tarantino film it remindes me to always make a Carl Keitz film.  Basically, make the short film or movie that I want to make.  What makes a Quentin Tarantino film so good, is that it’s a Quentin Tarantino film.  He always makes the movie that he wants to make.  That’s probably what every film maker should do.

So, apparently I can see in to the future.  In my last post I talked about how great it would be to get in to the SoCal Film Festival.  Later that day, I got an acceptance E-Mail from the SoCal Film Festival.  I have freak luck like that sometimes.  Before shooting Nice Guys Finish Last, I needed a light kit.  The kit I wanted cost about $900.  As sort of a joke to my room mate I said
“I’m going to make $1100 today.”  
before I left the house.  So, I’m walking to the bank.  I decided to walk, for some reason.  I forget why.  I think because parking in my complex sucks and I already had a good spot.  So, I’m going to cross the street and the little blinky guy tells me it’s time to walk.  So I step in to the street and BAM it hits me!  Not an idea of how I’m going to make $1100, but a truck making a right turn.  I wasn’t really hurt, I was just shocked.  I was walking and then all of a sudden I was on the ground.  It sort of knocked me back and I fell back on to the sidewalk.  As I’m getting up, a guy is getting out of the truck with an “O shit” look on his face.  He comes running over to me and says
“O my God!  I’m sorry!  I’m Sorry!  I’m sorry!  Are you ok?!  O fuck!  I didn’t see you!  I’m so sorry!”
The guy was like physically shaking.  So I stand up and I’m a little confused.  I’m thinking to myself “What the hell just happened?  Who the hell is this guy?  What’s going on?” Finally, I put two and two together and realize what happened.  I tell the guy I’m ok and he’s still freaking out.  He looks back at his truck and back at me and says
“I’m so sorry!  You’re not going to call the cops are you?!  I can’t deal with the cops, my license is suspended because of a DUI!  Please don’t call the cops!”
I’m still a bit dazed, so I’m just kind of standing there confused.  Then he says
“Look, I get these settlement checks every month from a job injury I got 3 months ago.  I’ll sign the settlement check and give it to you.  Then we can both just walk away.  OK, sound good?”
Before I could say anything he was handing me the check and shaking my hand.  In all honesty, I probably wouldn’t have taken it if he had let me speak.  I had no injuries, it was a mistake, no big deal.  I checked later and there was literally, not a scratch on me.
I look down at the check as he drives off and it’s for $2253.43.  I figured somehow, the universe conspired to help me, so I donated $1153.43 to my sister for my niece, for a college fund or something. 
Weird, huh?  That’s sort of how I felt about The SoCal Film Festival post yesterday.  Maybe I should try that more often.
Man!  It sure would be great if Kevin Smith, David Fincher, Peter Jackson, Sam Rami, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez,  or Guillermo del Toro E-Mailed me and offered me a sweet ass paid internship!  Or if I got invied to help out on Dexter, my favorite show of all time!  You know what, I would settle for an E-Mail interview with Michael C. Hall or really anyone on that cast.
I think part of my success with film festivals has to do with how easy I make it for them.  First of all Censored is 3:30 seconds long.  I note that on the DVD I send out, along with the title, my name, what region DVD it is, what film festival it’s for, and the tracking number they give me when I pay online.  I also put another sticker on the back of the case with the title, my name, my phone number, and the tracking number again.  And I use very stylish Simpons stamps.  My goal is for them to take one look at the DVD and not have to do anything extra.  I want them to open the envelope, take one look at it, pop it in to the DVD player, and go.  No looking up information and no wondering what the DVD is, who made it, and why they have to watch it.  No extra steps.  Festivals can sometimes get thousands of DVD’s, why would you make it any more difficult for them?  You’re only asking for a rejection letter if you do. 
Wow, I went way off course.  I originally started this post to talk about the SoCal Film Festival.  I just mailed my screener copy to them.  According to my records, the festival takes place from 9/14/2009 – 9/23/2009.  I haven’t gotten the exact schedule or location yet, but I will be sure to let you guys know when I do.  I have a lot of friends in this area who couldn’t make it to the LA shows.  Which is totally understandable.  I’m one of the few insane OCers that thinks that LA “Isn’t that far.”  It will be nice to be so close to a festival for a change.  I’m really looking forward to it.
Here is the link to the festivals website and I hope some of you can make it:
SoCal Film Festival