John Q. Phats Entertainment

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.