John Q. Phats Entertainment

I watched 2 episodes of Science of the Movies last night.  That show is a big reminder of what I don’t have access to.  One episode was all about different moveable camera mounts.  There was this gigantic camera mount that had 12 points of axis that you could program to do motions over and over again.  It’s basically so you can layer two shots on top of each other.  Since the motion of two shots match perfectly, the two shots together look seamless.  I honestly had no clue that’s how it was done.  All of my split screen shorts were pretty much that, minus the motion.  I didn’t realize it, but I kind of stumbled on the early meathod of special effects.  That’s kind of cool.  I find that I do that a lot actually.  It’s kind of weird.  I don’t know if I hear about it somewhere else and subconsciously make myself feel like I thought of it, or if I really do come up with concepts that just happen to match what’s already out there. 
I am meeting with a script writer today to discuss Project X.  By spreading the word through my contacts, I’ve actually got some people interested.  Now all I need is a roughly $5000, an HD Camera, locations, equipment, skill, and food.  Huh.  Anyway, yeah, I’m going to be focusing on that.  It’s tough to juggle everything though.  Nice Guys Finish Last is almost done.  That’s going to need to go out to festivals and Censored is still going.  By the way, I submitted to something a while back called the SoCal Film Festival.  I really hope I get accepted to that.  That would be awesome.  Mainly because they would be holding it right near my house.  I could probably go to every night of that if I wanted to.  It’s literally a 10 minute drive vs an hour+ drive to the festivals Censored has been accepted to.  I would really like Censored to screen somewhere outside of California.  Don’t ask me why, I just think it would be cool.   Every time you get accepted to a festival they send you these little acceptance things:

Like that guy right there.  I suppose can put those on the DVD’s that I send out to other festivals as sort of a selling point.  Imagine if I get selected for all 4 of the other festivals I entered?  That will be 7 total.  That will look kind of insane.  You also get one if you’ve been nominated for or win an award at a festival.  Strictly Background had like a bajillion acceptance ones and 6 Best Documentary Award winners.  These things are actually called Laurels.  Every festival does them.  At least as far as I can tell, every festival does one.  I think they are kind of official and regal looking.  It’s kind of neat to have these.  Sort of like a digital trophy.  Hopefully when Nice Guys Finish Last is done it gets it’s own collection of them.

EDIT(7/29/2009- 3:32PM) – I just got an acceptance E-mail from the SoCal Film Festival.  That kicks so much ass.  I’ll give you guys all the details in tomorrows post.

Last night, I went to the SAG building in LA to watch Strictly Background.  It’s a documentary on extras.  I didn’t know this before, but people make a living by just working as extras.  This movie is about 10 extras trying to get by.  First off it was an unbelievable documentary.  I really enjoyed it.  I don’t think I’ll ever look at extras the same again.  I suppose you lose sight of it sometimes, but those people in the background moving around are actually people.  The documentary was kind of a jolt of a reminder of that.  I was just surprised that this sort of thing was a full time job.  I had no idea.  Some people are in it just because they love to be extras, others are in it because they want to be actors and they want something more out of it.  It was all really entertaining, funny at times, and emotional at others.  Afterwards there was a QA with the cast and crew. 
I thought that was awesome, aside from the mouthy bitch in the audience that would not shut the hell up and kept asking bullshit questions that nobody else cared about.  There always has to be one, doesn’t there?  After her third question I thought about smacking her in the back of the head with a chair or something.  Anything to shut her the hell up.  At one point she tried arguing with a casting director about how to make it in the industry.  Uhmmmmm, what?  He’s a been a casting director for 10+ years and you’re some mouthy bitch who can’t even get extra work.  Who do you think is going to win that battle?  That would be like me and Neil Armstrong sitting in a space ship and me looking over at him and saying
“No offense Neil.  But you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” 
Anyway, you can Netflix it or buy it on DVD.  I would high recommend it, it’s an awesome documentary.  It’s very well done.  I actually took a friend with me that usually hates Documentaries and he even said it was really good.  It’s won 6 best documentary awards at various festivals.  Seriously, there’s no reason not to check it out.  You can check out the web site here.  There’s a link there to buy it on DVD.  For those aspiring film makers out there, it’s a good side view of the industry. 
After the viewing they let everyone mingle with the cast and crew.  For some reason, if I see someone on screen, no matter how big or small the movie or short film is, I am insanely nerveous when I meet that person.  My mind goes blank and all I can do is smile and tell them how awesome I thought they were.  They all probably thought I was on prozac or something.  I met the director and producer, I was fine.  Told him it was an awesome documentary, we talked a bit.  I met the extras that were featured in the film and it was all smiles and blankness.  It must be like a mental thing.  I think if I keep going to these film festivals and expose myself to it more and more I’ll probably eventually get used to it.
One of my many goals is to get on the set of a short film or film by a film maker that’s way better then me just to see how they do it.  Even if I’m just standing there with my thumb up my ass starring at everybody, I think it will give me good insight on how everything is supposed to work.