J!NX.com

About

Kino "Lunchbox" Finch is J!NX's Project Coordinator. It is his job to make sure that art gets approved, schedules get made and deadlines are met. When he is not writing e-mails or updating spreadsheets he is either reading, writing, slowly leveling/playing video games, hanging out with his brother and nephew, or lost in thought while on some sort of imaginary, self-imposed quest.

Projects

I currently have six screenplays at varying stages of completion. I have written the words "The End" on three of them, but every time I pick one of them up, I end up making major revisions. One of my immediate goals is to enter my favorite of the lot; The Blackout Affair, in Scriptapalozza next year. It's a dark romantic comedy set in a California desert town. Most of the plot focuses on the tumultuous relationship between a local tattoo artist and a bartender. I am just going to complete my last set of revisions, have it proofed and submit it without giving myself a chance to tear it to shreds again.

I also have a children's poem/bedtime story that I keep telling myself I am going to illustrate, but have only gotten a few rough sketches done for. It is called MOON FOR HIRE and has nothing to do with bearing your rear end for cash. I said "children's poem", sheesh! I think it deals with taking responsibility for your actions.

25 Things

1. My middle name is Luigi. Yeah, Kino Luigi Finch…I am not sure what my parents were thinking/on. As a result of my middle name, I do opt for Mario’s green sporting counterpart more often than not when playing any of the games that he is a character in.
2. I was born on “the farm”, a commune in southern Tennessee which holds the distinction of being the longest running, self-sufficient community in America.
3. I have lived in 5 states, 15 towns/cities, and over 40 different houses.
4. My first experience with any type of R.P.G was a home-made concoction that my brothers, neighbor and I dreamed up. Dice, mazes/dungeons drawn on graph paper, a ton of imagination and “muscle-men” were involved.
5. I moved from New York to Hawaii when I was in 5th grade. I hated Hawaii at first, but grew to love it over time.
6. Two games that I remember spending a ridiculous amount of time playing when I was younger, but that barely anyone remembers now, are Karnov and Kung-Fu on the NES. I was also the only one in my family that could refuel in Top Gun.
7. The next games that I am going to buy are Prototype and Fight Night Round 3.
8. My mom thinks that The Dukes of Hazzard is to blame for many of my speeding tickets and any problems I had with authority growing up. I did demolish my 1971 Chevy Nova by launching it off a dirt jump, so I guess her theory may hold some weight.
9. My two favorite places that I have lived are South Lake Tahoe and San Diego. I love to snowboard and surf (in no particular order) and the fact that I could conceivably do both of these in the same day in California makes it pretty much perfect in my book.
10. When I first moved from Hawaii, I spoke “pigeon” (the broken English that most people speak in Hawaii) so often without thinking that none of my new friends ever knew what I was saying. Eventually, “Ho brah, I stay starving, we go grab some grinds, eh?” became “Hey Friend, I am getting really hungry. Would you like to go get some lunch?”
11. One of the houses I grew up in was a tree house. It was about 30 feet up in the air and built between two huge, old mango trees. I would find giant cane spiders and centipedes under my futon on a regular basis.
12. I would chop off my pinky toe(s) for either Jessica Alba (specifically SIN CITY Jessica Alba) or Megan Fox. All that they would have to do is ask me to. I am a sucker like that. I sat about 10 feet away from Alba during the premiere of Good Luck Chuck and am really glad that she did not decide to ask me for a pinky.
13. As much as I love board sports, I SUCK on a skateboard. I have broken my ankle and suffered multiple concussions just to prove how badly I suck.
14. I can recall without question the most frightening event of my life. When I was 11 years old, my father made the mistake of talking me and my brothers into paddling out to “the point” (a reef break in Hanalei Bay on Kauai’s north shore) during a huge swell. The break is fairly controlled, and his intention was to just have us sit outside and watch the surfers take off on the 40 to 50 foot monsters. As we sat there, I noticed larger swells on the horizon and it was not long before we were all quite literally paddling (vertically at times) for our lives.
15. I love the fact that we live in a time when it has become very hard to tell an individual who has gone stark raving mad from a high-powered businessman. When I was a kid, if someone was walking around shouting to themselves, they were crazy. Thanks to Bluetooth technology now everyone gets to walk around looking like a lunatic.
16. Besides my job here at J!NX, my favorite positions that I have held have been: a) children’s snowboard instructor and b) summer camp administrator/head counselor. I love kids, and am really glad to have recently become an uncle.
17. My favorite type of food is Italian. This really makes it hard when you are trying to cut carbohydrates out of your diet.
18. My taste in music is all over the board. Punk, Rap, Classic Rock, not-so- classic rock, but if I had to pick one I would say I am a big fan of underground hip-hop.
19. Sometimes I get blown away by all of the options that we have today. I can barely keep up with everything that has been made available to me. Should I learn how to cook a soufflé or study ancient Aramaic? I have an extra half hour, should I research the Higgs boson or learn Tai Chi? The possibilities are truly endless, and if you are ever bored then you probably deserve to be.
20. I think that the greatest thing about J!NX is that it was built on the premise that we should all celebrate our passions in life. I don’t know that there is any greater disservice than companies that encourage indifference with “tough” mottos like DGAF or sullen. J!NX: The Anti-Apathy- GET INTO IT.
21. Before coming to J!NX, I was the executive assistant/creative consultant to the vice-chairman of Lionsgate films.  I made some great contacts and learned a lot (including the fact that Los Angeles is not for me.)  After two years of escaping to San Diego every weekend, I was lucky enough to find J!NX. After getting out of Hollywood, I have been back exactly once.
22. Some of my favorite novelists are John Steinbeck, Chuck Palhanuck, Kurt Vonnegut, John Updike, and Robert Heinlein.  Stranger in a Strange Land is a book that I always find myself recommending to people.
23. Some of my favorite screenwriters are Richard Kelly, Quentin Tarantino, The Cohen Brothers, The Wachowski Brothers, Paul Thomas Anderson, John Hamburg and Guy Ritchie.  I think Eric Roth destroyed F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, liked Slumdog Millionare but apparently not as much as everyone else, and consider The Squid and the Whale to be one of the best films I have seen recently.