Hello everyone. Good news for the Netflix users . . . "Special Ed" is now available on Netflix, so please add it to your Queue--even if you've already seen it, getting it sent to you will help us. Thank you so much for your continued support--and the investors thank you as well.

You know, I don't know why I didn't do this a while ago, but for those of you who haven't been able to find "Special Ed" yet (and I think for people in other countries...?) it can be downloaded for rental or purchase at movielink.com.

Go check it out!

And thanks for everyone who has made all of the great comments lately. I appreciate it and I'm sorry I haven't been able to respond to each one individually. But I'll catch up soon!

Thanks!

So I'm staying in a hotel in Boston this past weekend, and I checked to
see if "Special Ed" was on the pay-per-view yet when we checked in. It
wasn't playing, and I didn't think it was going to play until July 6th.
Then last night I got up to get a glass of water, and I hear D.W.
Moffett on the TV say, ". . . Jeff Phelps, who wrote and directed the
movie was smart, and let us do our jobs . . ." Sure enough, "Special
Ed" is in the hotels that use OnCommand, available for purchase, and
every six minutes D.W. Moffett talks about his character arc. How
kick-ass is that? It was almost surreal to see pieces of the movie
playing with a female host talking about the "emotionally gripping
drama." Oh, and even better was after she talked about our movie, her
segway into the next bit was: ". . . so check out the Arthouse Section
for this, and many other 'special' movies." Love it.

I'm going to try getting some video I shot of it on my camera phone,
but until then, here are two still screen shots:

The other night was awesome. The Screen Actors Guild headquarters here in
LA contacted me, and asked if I wanted to screen "Special Ed" for
interested actors and other members of the SAG Foundation and do a Q&A
with D.W. afterward. Obviously I jumped all over the opportunity, not
only for more exposure, but also because I love talking shop with
anyone who's interested. So many people took the time to inform and
educate me; I feel it's something I just need to do.

Anyway, I thought they'd bring in twenty or thirty people who wanted to
see a free film. I was way wrong. This little theater was packed with
around a hundred people, and they really reacted with the film. I told
them as we started the Q&A that experiences like this are invaluable to
indie filmmakers like myself because our movies don't get the big
theater exposure afforded other films, and consequently we don't really
get to know if our jokes or our dramatic pauses or our pacing works
with a theater audience. That's why I think the "theater experience"
is so damn cool, and ultimately will never go away. Just experiencing
a story with a hundred other people in a dark theater is so real and
visceral and shared--I love it.

And D.W. and I had a ball fielding questions for the better part of an
hour after. This is a picture of the poster in the lobby of SAG. And
as I told all of the people there; now it's up to them to tell others
about the movie, and keep it rolling. As I always say to you guys;
thank you for doing it.

Kansas City Live!


The link will only be live for a short time, so make sure you get there!

Okay, now what is this link? I just got done doing an interview on a local Kansas City NBC affiliate talk show. They made it their "Kansas City Live's Best Moment" for today. So if you go to this link, and hit the button on the right hand side that says: "Kansas City Live's Best Moment," you can see an excerpt from it. Very cool, and I had a blast doing it. Afterwards, I spent an hour with their director, discovering the ins and outs of directing/producing a live daily show--intense to say the least.

Anyway, I'll write more later, but this is the "sneak preview" of the interview." I'm sure when I get back I'll post the full interview on the website. "Grassroots" is gaining steam. I love it, and thank you all for your continued help and support.

Or I'm going to be at least. For everyone in Kansas City (who happens to be home at 10 AM this Thursday, or has a Tivo,) I will be on TV, doing an interview with
"Kansas City Live" (http://kshb.com/kshb/ask_the_expert/0,1925,KSHB_9384,00.html.)

From what I gather, it's basically a "Today Show" for Kansas City on the NBC
affiliate. I'm really excited to do my first interview as a writer/director. I'll tell you all about it when I get back and we'll see if we can get footage up on Special Ed's website.

Well, I know we've made it. Because we'll be in hotel rooms, and we're
in Blockbuster? No, no, no. It's because I just received an email
from a friend of mine on his honeymoon in Bangkok. He told me that he
was flipping through the piles of pirated DVDs in Bangkok's Pantip
Plaza, and you guessed it, he found "Special Ed." I told him to buy
one and send it to me, so I can see what a pirated DVD looks like. And
they do say that imitation is the best form of flattery. To be honest,
I just think it's cool that someone took the time to pirate the
movie--although I don't condone it. But ain't it cool?

And hey...I've gotten some suggestions for jazzing up the old LJ here. Any of you do custom layouts? Think a contest might work? I have some cool swag from the set I could sign (maybe DW too) and give away.

What do you think?

New exciting news for "Special Ed." D.W. Moffett (aka "Sonny Collins,") just hopped on a plane to do an interview with OnCommand Hotel Pay-per-View. Why, you ask? We got a deal with OnCommand Hotel Pay-per-View! (http://www.oncommand.com.) And starting July 6, "Special Ed" will be available in more than 500,000 rooms throughout the U.S. for at least 4 months. Can you believe it?

On Command hotel properties include more than 100 of the most prestigious hotel chains and operators in the lodging industry including, Accor, Adam's Mark Hotels & Resorts, Fairmont, Four Seasons, Gaylord Hotels (Gaylord Palms, Gaylord Texan, Gaylord Opryland and Gaylord Hotel at Opryland), Hilton Hotels Corporation, Hyatt Hotels, Intercontinental Hotels Group (Inter-Continental, InterContinental Buckhead, Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inn), Loews, Marriott (Courtyard, Renaissance, Fairfield Inn and Residence Inn), New York Palace Hotel, Radisson, Ramada, Starwood Hotels & Resorts (Westin, Sheraton, W Hotels and Four Points), and Wyndham Hotels & Resorts.

The most exciting part is that they are indeed interviewing D.W. about the movie, and his interview will be running on the Preview Channel in the hotel room. You know how when you turn on your TV, you see trailer after trailer of the hot movies? Well starting in July, you can see the "Special Ed" trailer and an interview with the one and only D.W. Moffett. He truly is the man.

So the next time you (or anyone you know) is in a hotel, see if it's an "OnCommand" room, and check us out . . . please. Thank you guys for getting the word out there--it's really working.

Yesterday was a big day. Why, you ask? Is it because of the season premiere of "Rescue Me?" Fantastic show, but no. Is it because my friend, Ryan McPartlin, played a gay quarterback on "Pepper Dennis"? No, but it was hilarious to see him not enjoying a sexy dance from Rebecca Romijn.

Yesterday was May 30--the day that "Special Ed" started shipping from Amazon.com, and that means that everyone who has ordered a copy of "Special Ed" from Amazon.com should be receiving them very soon. I know I preordered, so I'm looking forward to it.

And I have to admit that I did a little exploration/research at Amazon.com. Here's what I found: Out of 104,273 available titles on Amazon.com, "Special Ed" is ranked #23,202. Now, I have to be honest and say that I'm not sure if this is awesome or sad. Actually, I'm just thrilled that it's out there, so of course it's awesome. What's ranked #104,273 you ask? "Lower Body Yoga." What's ranked #1? "High School Musical." I know, I was surprised too. So the other obvious question is who are "Special Ed's" neighbors? Above us at #23,201 is "Three Guys Named Mike," a 1951 film starring Jane Wyman, and below us at #23,203 is Nicholas Cage's "8MM." I don't know about anyone else, but that movie made me really uncomfortable.

So two things for everyone: 1) If you did/do order from Amazon, please let me know if you get it in a timely fashion etc., and 2) let's see if we can break into the 4-digit rankings. I think it would be really fun to be ranked #9,999. Anyone else agree? And if we get there, let's set a goal of #999, then #99 . . . you see where I'm going with this--let the surge begin--thanks to you.

I'm having so much fun with the movie out there for the public, I can't stand it! I have to get making another one . . . and I am . . . any guesses what I might be writing about? More to come . . .

Okay, I have to admit again, that I spent a good deal of Saturday
checking out Blockbusters in the city. To my surprise, there were some
that had all of the copies checked out. And some of you have told me
that you've seen the same thing. That's awesome.

My Mom and my Mother-in-law both admitted that they rented copies from
multiple Blockbusters to "stimulate rentals." Gotta love Moms.

And speaking of Moms, it's interesting what I told my Mom yesterday.
She asked how it felt watching the movie now, and I told her that for
the first time since I started this process, I just flat-out enjoyed
watching it play. Every time I've watched the film up until now, I've
been either looking for mistakes or testing music or judging
compression rates, etc. This time, it really felt like the movie was
"finished," that there was nothing more to be done to it. And I
actually managed to just enjoy the story again.

Still working on getting Blockbuster's online service to catch up, so
it's available for anyone who doesn't have a Blockbuster nearby. And
I've been inundating Netflix with requests, so hopefully they're not
far away.

Also, it looks like we may have some more good news, but I don't want
to post until the contracts are signed. Stay tuned, and thank you
again and again for the help getting the word out there. I promise to
repay the favor whenever any of you need it.

And it looks like we've hooked DW. He got himself a LJ and a myspace account over the weekend. He's dw_moffett here. I think he's going to be posting soon, so keep an eye on him. I told him you were all very nice and welcoming so do me a favor and friend him too.

Thanks everyone!