The Atlanta 48 Hour Film Project
What Happened During Your Weekend?
The Atlanta filmmakers share stories from their wild weekend of filmmaking. (Blogging ended shortly after the filmmaking weekend.)
Climbing a mountain of tapes.
This was my 4th year doing the 48, and each year presents different challenges to vanquish & more fun than the last. Our large team of incredibly talented people was assembled in little more than a week, which left little time to discuss every detail—including what standard we would shoot on and what machine we would use to edit. Some plans changed & we adapted quickly to meet them. At a certain point during filming, a bad beach box forced us to roll sound separate from video on a backup camera, almost doubling the number of tapes demanding to be captured and the work to be done once they were.(Next year, we’re definitely going tapeless.)
Even with that tall task, we ultimately managed to turn the film in on time, even if it was not quite in the shape we wanted. I certainly could not have done it without the awesome--and very patient--post production team I had working closely with me & a great director with a clear vision to jump start and guide the process through to the final edit.
- Matt Bailey , Creative Studios of Atlanta
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Another great experience
This was my 7th 48-Hour Film experience and I was so fortunate to have a terrific cast and crew. Only three of us had done one of these before, but you would never had known it seeing how well everyone blended together as a team.
Other than my falling through a glass table (no injuries), things really went well.
- Jim Adams, Interstate Films
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On a lark...
"Dream Something."
Well that name was chosen because i texted my friend what our name should be and she answered "dream something?" As in, "dream" something or other. It was good enough like that, so there you go.
As far as this festival, I'm almost scared to see my little project next to what others have done. It's not professional, and neither am I- I'm actually about to graduate law school, and just got serious about photography a year ago.
I found out about this two days before, and having never done a plot (and really only a couple short videos- the longest being two minutes), I had insufficient skills to even begin to think of entering this, but it was something I wanted to do, so I dove in.
Not only did I shoot with no lights, no equipment- nothing save my camera and my slight knowledge of editing - but also I had no actors at all. (I know, this is getting more embarrassing by the minute!)
But what I did have was two wonderful, beautiful friends willing to participate in this little experiment with me. I think they did a marvelous job, considering they've never even been in front of a camera before.
I got extremely lucky with the music; at 3am Sat night i remembered that my musician friends had been recorded recently at Eddie's Attic. I sent a text to ask if I could use one of their songs for the movie. When I woke up the next day it was in my email. Needless to say, the song makes the movie, because it says exactly what I had intended to convey.
At any rate, all this is to say that I can't wait to see what everyone else has done. I had fun, and isn't that the point of art? That it be something meaningful to you, and that you enjoy doing? This is and was, and I'd gladly do it again.
Though next time, I may get a crew. :)
- Caroline Smith, Dream Something
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i think i can do it . . .
Whoa. We maybe bit off more than we could chew . . . but isn't that the point? You just dive in an figure it out as you go. I feel very fortunate to have been apart of a team so determined and committed. We didn't sleep, but with the gauze of retrospect . . . it was great fun! The screening tonight was a blast. We all walked out beaming. It may have been one of the hardest projects we have ever undertaken, but in the end . . . all of the crazy ideas and seemingly impossible set-ups were worth it. We moved furniture into the wee hours of last Friday night to create the illusion of a train on film . . . my back is still sore. But our lead actor was the ultimate trooper, and our director and editor pulled off a hat-trick. Oh yeah - and we worked with a dog (a Chiuaua to be exact) AND a kid, and we still have a shred of sanity left. That says something. And we managed to get the film in at 7:23 on Sunday. This coming weekend . . . we are going to sleep. And sleep some more. And that sounds utterly perfect.
- Troy Bieser, Craw4rd Cre8ions
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The making of "Unfinished Bisiness"
I have to say this now. When we were asked what was something interesting about our weekend we all avoided talking about this but. I was a brat on the set. First our producer was two hours late for the call time. I was amped and rerady to go and our producers were dragging their feet so I got a huge attitude and about half way through the day I just sat back and let someone else film and direct the rest of the scenes I flipped out on the producer and I shut down. I had stayed up all night working on this project and no one else that should have put some extra hours in, actually did it I had wrote out a shot list I thought that we would film along with the shot list and when 2 or 3 people would start changing things during production. We had a meeting to smooth out everything but we had so many ideas and views that it was difficult to real difficult to get going. No one wanted to say it about me but I was an A%# and could have conducted myself better than I did.
- Dray Woods, P.I.M.P. city shakers
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OMG
This was my second year participating in the 48 hr. First time as team leader. As far my experience goes Murphy's Law reigns supreme... My favorite part was being out in the middle of the woods with HMI's, 2k's, P2 camera and everything else expensive and breakable when it started pouring down rain. Not.... Word to the wise, have interior locations as back-ups. Nuff said
- Luke Williams, ETC
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An Unforgettable Experience
I was excited about participating in the 48Hour Film Project. I have my "double mint twins" to thank for welcoming me on their team. I was the only girl with five distinguish young talented men of different backgrounds. We were faced with an obstacle, but because of their passion for the film industry they demonstrated that no matter what, the show must go on. I enjoyed my time spent with these fellows. They wanted to finish editing early just to watch the Michael Jackson marathons! The entertainer spirit just travel I guess!
- LaJohnda Johnson, Team Enigma
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What an intro...
Working on a film was a "bucket list" item for me and I don't think that I could have picked a better place to start as a PA. Great script idea, great talent, and great attitudes through a very long day of filming. A founding member of the Sleep is Overrated club, sunrise is something that I only see on my way TO bed if I have a choice - but I'd do this again without hesitation!
- Laura Silsbee, Creative Studios of Atlanta
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Sleep Deprivation
Don't quite remember the weekend, but it was fun! Looking forward to the screening tonight.
- Dick Mays, WHAT the Hell
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Another great experience.
This is my third time heading up a team for the 48 hour film project. Even pulling all-nighters Friday night *and* Saturday night (with a one-hour nap), I have to say it was another amazing experience and I am looking forward to doing it again next year.
Half of the team met each other for the first time on set, but we bonded and were like a family by the end of the day, sometimes laughing uncontrollably. Hopefully we won't wait until next year's to get going on our next project.
- Matt Nielsen, cool hat productions
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It was fun!
It was a long, hot, balmy day in the ATL, when all the popsicles were melting down to their sticks, but the Pimp City Shakers was ready for the task (minus the Dunkin Doughnut's coolatta).
After the struggle to get on the same page (like any other production with a crew working as a team instead of dictatorship), we were fine. We hammered out the story with great actors and crew to accomplish a great job.
I know that I say this for the whole team, "It was fun!"
- Deardria Nesbitt, Pimp City Shakers
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We made it!
I'll probably put up a more detailed blog on my website (www.garyhamrick.com) later but figured I would chime in here.
We drew comedy so I made the decision as the producer to step aside as director and let my assistant director step in as director. I took over as production manager and did a little bit of assistant director work too.
We had a great team and some really patient people at a Mexican restaurant in Alpharetta.
This was the second time that I put together a 48 Hour team and I felt like our team worked very well with one another.
- Gary Hamrick Jr., Interstate Films
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48 hour film
I really enjoyed working with my team. I truly believe that the hard work and dedication will pay off. Everyone pulled together and helped as Gina said. I am looking forward to seeing all of the work that took place on Saturday.
- Danetta Hall, YLP productions
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Fellini Lives!
This was my first time doing anything with the 48 hour FF, so I wasn\\\'t sure what to expect. After drawing a genre that we couldn\\\'t get excited about, we pulled from the drop category and pulled Period piece, so we decided to do a tribute to Fellini. I worked on my story and then at 3:30 am on Friday night, instead of going to sleep, I scrambled 3 dozen eggs packed them up and drove to the studio. I arrived to pleasantly find crew waiting for me before breakfast call. That gave me a few minutes to refine my shot list and explain to our DP the feeling Fellini felling I wanted to capture with dramatic lighting and B&W. We shot at one location with our editor, composer and graphics guy in the next room. Then it was a matter of clock management to work the 43 or so actors through the Fellini fantasy world. My editor had no clue what to do with the bizarre footage I sent him, so I told him to get some rest and I assembled the rough cut. When he came back at 8am, he had a better understanding of what I wanted to do. We worked hard, laughed a lot and stressed about making the deadline. In the end, I am so grateful to have had wonderful team of creative geniuses.
- Ken Feinberg, Creative Studios of Atlanta
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THE ENERGY LASTED!
Our team brought their A game! Everyone worked together, helped each other and just made it an overall great experience! We look forward to viewing the hard work and look forward to our next project.
I want to let my team know that they are to be proud of themselves!
- Gina Robinson, YLP PRODUCTIONS
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What a weekend.
Talk about an amazing weekend to shoot. Hope all the rest of the 48hfp people had a great weekend like us. We probably aren't the only ones in the Atlanta 48 hour to shoot exclusively with 2 Canon 5D Mark II's, but wow...talk about potentially being the wave of the future for video technology.
Looking forward to see all the great submissions.
- Trent Chau, Tannhauser Gate
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