The Washington DC 48 Hour Film Project
What Happened During Your Weekend?
The DC filmmakers share stories from their wild weekend of filmmaking. (Blogging will begin after the filmmaking weekend ends.)
Ivan Pagoda: A Feel Good Story
Check out Ivan Pagoda's website: www.ivanpagodasexcoach.com
And the film on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTjhgSECvlA
- Zach Glass, Ad Infinitum
flag for review (what is this?)
Roof-top Dolly
One of the most amazing things I've seen done in such a short time, is that our master carpenter, Jason Krznarich actually built a rig on our 2 story roof for the dolly to ride on just to get that perfect dolly shot from the right angle. Jason loves a challenge and Brian, the DP, loves to give him one. I have to say we pulled it off very nicely!
- Karen Pennington, Star Wipe Films
flag for review (what is this?)
AFI screening
Seeing our film, "Nowhere, man", screened at the AFI was an incredible experience for our cast and crew. We showed up early to be first in line and beat the crowds, but due to the rain delay we were the only people in the lobby.
Our actors loved seeing themselves on the big screen and our crew was really pleased with how well the projection preserved their hard work. The AFI is an incredible venue for this event and the 48hourfilm.com team deserves a huge round of "Thanks!" for securing it.
A short video about our team's screening experience is here:
http://vimeo.com/channels/bad#4523615
- Trammell Hudson, Bad Media
flag for review (what is this?)
Sum-up of various WIT teams...
http://washingtonimprovtheater.com/news/48hfp2009.htm
- Colin Murchie, Witfilms
flag for review (what is this?)
Great weekend!
Didn't have a lot of time to prepare this year (or, rather, real life precluded my taking advantage of the time), so I was unusually nervous about how we'd do this time around. We only had a couple of possible locations, and I had a larger cast and a smaller crew than I was comfortable with. And my friends' and colleagues' assurances that I'd done this a half-dozen times before, that I had nothing to worry about did little to assuage my anxiety.
(We debated going for a musical -- and I finally managed to track down a couple of musicians -- before realizing that most o my cast didn't sing. They were willing to try it, but that led me to decide to go for the wild card should we draw the infamous "Western or Musical.")
In the end, drawing "Holiday Film," we decided to make a movie based on an offhand joke I'd made to our writer a couple of days' prior (coupled with some of my wife's -- literally -- dreaming about that joke), and came up with what I think is one of our best efforts yet.
We were shooting in the Watergate along with the Untied Artists team, but despite any fears of clashing competitors, I have to say they were extraordinarily friendly and cooperative, and we managed to share the space without any major incidents. (Of course, the audience will likely spot some of the same shooting spots in Screening Group G, but I don't think that'll be a major issue.)
Our shoot went well, thanks in no small part to a great script, an extremely talented DP, an enthusiastic cast, and a dedicated and fast-working crew. We did start shooting later than we'd planned, so we ended up our shooting a few hours behind schedule, and had some issues with capturing our footage, but in the end we finished up in plenty of time and had a (comparatively) leisurely stroll to the dropoff. (I was determined not to run in during Mark's final countdown, as I had last year.)
All in all, a great experience, and I can't wait to see everyone's finished films!
- Bill Coughlan, Tohubohu
flag for review (what is this?)
Behind the scenes on "Nowhere, man"
We had so much fun making our movie "Nowhere, man" that we put together a making-of featurette for our team members' souvenir DVDs.
You can watch the behind the scenes video:
http://vimeo.com/4487603
- Trammell Hudson, Bad Media
flag for review (what is this?)
Post your pictures to Flickr!
Hey filmmakers,
Pictures from the kick off (some of the 200 or so) have been uploaded to:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/48hfpdc09/
If you're one of the teams up there that isn't credited, please comment on the picture and I'll amend the description.
If you have pictures from this weekend, feel free to join the 48 Hour Film Project DC 2009 Flickr group and add yours :)
Congrats to all the filmmakers!
- Nicole, 48 Hour Film Project on Flickr
flag for review (what is this?)
Whose your name again?
I can't remember being this tired since the week after my daughter was born. Our entire cast & crew were first-timers to the 48hfp and it was an overwhelming, amazing, fun, silly, enlightening, challenging and rewarding experience.
I had no idea that the friends I surround myself with every day could be SO incredibly creative. Nor did I realize what a team we could make when we worked together. Our team was blessed with an extremely talented technical crew which made our first attempt at the 48hfp a pretty easy one.
I have zero complaints about the entire 48 hours, other than the fact that it's now over, which is such a bummer. We've rented a limo for our premiere screening so our entire cast & crew can go together. We are counting the minutes until we can see our little movie on the big screen, and to see the other amazing movies that the rest of the teams have created. We really hope a few people in the audience laugh, since we think our movie is pretty darn funny :)))
Can't wait until 2010!! Thank you to the 48hfp committee for organizing such a fun and unique contest.
- Jennifer Siler, South County United
flag for review (what is this?)
Don't hate me but...
Everything went off without a hitch. We were setting up for the last shot of the day on Saturday and it occurred to me, and I voiced it: absolutely nothing went wrong on the shoot all day. The entire team turned to me and said "Shut up!!"
Fortunately I didn't jinx us with that. Nor did I jinx the editing. I walked out of the editor's appartment at 3:30. The hardest thing was staying awake for the next three hours so I didn't sleep through the drop off window.
- Kristin Holodak, Heron Media
flag for review (what is this?)
The Show Must Go On
One thing we've learned in doing this over the last three years is you never know what surprises in store. The first surprise this year was finding out Friday that another team was filming in the same place as us. Fortunately, the Watergate is a big place and we didn't bump into each other much.
The second surprise was when one of key musicians couldn't be found. Turns out he was in the Watergate all along -- stuck between floors in an elevator. Since we had drawn suspense, I thought fleetingly about abandoning our project and filming the elevator mess. But the thought of having to chase down the maintenance folks and others to sign releases quickly brought me back to reality.
Surprise number three was the computer crashes that kept occurring while we were rendering, or should I say trying to render. We finally managed to get something on a flash drive and turned it in with about 4 minutes to spare. I hope what we turned in was the movie. We literally didn't have time to check. I guess we'll find out Friday, when we see if anything shows up on the screen!
- David Morris, Untied Artists
flag for review (what is this?)
110 Teams Last Weekend
You all did! You set a new record for the 48 Hour Film Project--110 teams competed in DC. We had 94 films submitted on-time! That's an 85% on-time rate (avg. is 80%). There were many tales of crashed computers and things coming together at the last minute.
We're looking forward to seeing your films and hearing your stories this week and next at the AFI Silver Theater
- Mark, 48HFP
flag for review (what is this?)
Lighter Fluid, Puppets and open flame...
There are some things you just can't do with a normal actor but the ones I work with never complain. My son's girlfriend made a great character head out of plastic clay (the kind you bake in the oven) and we used a body I made from wood and a clothes hanger. I knew the string would burn so we used thin wire to control the arms.
Like every "Money Shot" we had to shoot the flame sequence last just in case we caught the set on fire. I even wore gloves to work the puppet (which you can see in the film if you look close...) The whole thing went off well and was not too washed out from the bright flame.
Next year maybe explosions?
Loved the weekend with the all family crew - looking forward to seeing everyone elses films. See you all at the AFI Silver
Mark M
- Mark McKinney, Actors with Strings
flag for review (what is this?)
