The Washington, DC 48 Hour Film Project
What Happened During Your Weekend?
The Washington, DC filmmakers share stories from their wild weekend of filmmaking. You can blog for 14 days after the 48HFP. Share your story!
Who Knew
Everything started with a simple idea and a film club at Germanna Community College, VA. Who knew what were about to embark upon! A weekend with sleep depervation, lighting and sound that sucked, and no actors. We also had a group of traders among us who nominated my wife and I to be the actors since we had none and you need a few of those to make a good movie. Being the director was not a good enough excuse not to act. So, since I had to direct, assist with running the camera and act, I felt it was only fair that my black lab, "Bear" had to act too! And to my amazement and surprise, who knew he was a better actor than us. He only had to take his "takes" one time so he ate snack bones while my wife and I tried to get our lines right. Our team is amazing! With no sleep (ok, they had 3 hours for the weekend) they performed like knights in armor. The editor and my lab saved our movie titled "Shadow." Yes, and next year we will eagerly do it again.
- Luigi Benedetto, PFP-Pupil Film Production
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Once More Unto the Breach
This is now our fifth year participating in the 48 Hour Film Project (though our sixth film -- one year we did two films at once), and we really have treated each one as a learning experience. The way I look at it, this is real-world film school -- you either learn from it or you're just going through the motions.
Last year, our big "add-on" was bringing in a professional author to write our script, as well as pushing the envelope with noir-styled lighting (no small feat given our meager lighting kit). This year, we brought in another author (Barry Lyga), worked with two great (SAG) actors as our leads (Joe Hansard and Jennifer Massey), shot in HDV, and even managed to use a homemade car mount for our "road movie."
A lot of our regular troupe (both in front of and behind the camera) was unavailable this time around, so we'd be a little leaner than usual. But there's something to be said for keeping things small, and we'd just come off of shooting a new short (if anyone's interested, you can see a trailer at www.onewithabullet.com), so we'd honed our workflow pretty well. Of course, the time we'd spent on the earlier shoot also meant we hadn't prepared as much as usual, so we'd be winging things a bit.
After the kickoff event, I spent the drive home brainstorming with the author, so that by the time I'd arrived at my "base of operations," we already had a good handle on the story, and our producer and I could begin working out casting and logistics (including borrowing a neighbor's beat-up old car). It was still a late night, but we were in great shape to start shooting first thing Saturday morning.
Saturday was (as usual) a loooong day, but we managed to remain pretty flexible. We did have to switch the timing for one location (which meant we lost an actress for that scene and had to recast at the last minute), but we still managed to finish everything by around midnight. And we got some really great performances -- and shots -- in the process. Then it was time to get the overnight editor set up and grab a couple of hours' rest before the big scramble on Sunday.
We did run into a few snags at that point. We weren't able to get in touch with the artist whose music we'd wanted to use -- the Rumblefish deal really saved our collective butts. Our overnight editor wasn't able to get as far as I'd hoped, which meant I had to string out a lot of footage before I could start polishing anything. And our initial cut -- once we reached that stage -- came in at more than nine minutes. Whoops.
So as happens at that stage, you make tradeoffs. And in our case, that meant sacrificing color and audio correction for really taking the time to look at the piece and make intelligent cuts. So while it may not be as technically polished as I'd like, it's a lot more creatively rewarding. And that "second choice" music really ended up complementing the story perfectly.
And most importantly, we got it finished. (Just one copy, though -- no time for a backup.)
Will there be a "director's cut"? Probably -- but that'll mostly be just to correct those technical issues. The old mantra about editing holds true -- the forced necessity of cutting it down really does improve the flow of the story. So while I may add a couple of shots (and maybe one scene) back in, it certainly won't be going back up to that nine-minute version.
Now I can't wait to see it up on the big screen; it promises to be a great capper to the whole experience. (And for the record, I've also gotten a sneak peek at the Integral Arts entry -- so I can say that attendees at tonight's 9:30 screening will not be disappointed.)
Hope to see you all there!
- Bill Coughlan, Tohubohu
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Should've warned my friends...
got a voicemail from my friend Rob, which went like this, "Hey, Pam, I just finished watching your film. I really enjoyed hearing you yell 'coked out whore.' But you probably should've told me not to play it in the office. You know the part where he pukes at the beginning? well to people down the hall, it sounded like moaning and they thought I was watching porn."
- Pamela Nash, Musky Adventures
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Shout Outs to Group
Two days after our screening, 4 images from the films in group "B" stick out in my mind.
#1 A drunk Leprechaun hurling up stomach contents on a lawn during a children's party.
#2 "Stuntman" standing high atop a building waiting to strike.
#3 The guitar-string-worn, bloody fingers of a child at the end of the Pizza Guy film.
#4 A large, snake boot wearing, hot-sauce swilling cowboy smoking a cigar. Great voice. Great presence. I thought he was the best character of night.
The best film of the night has to go to "Bad News Bearer". Great concept, great cast, well shot, well told.
My biggest surprise of the night was finding out the directors of the Pizza Guy film were 12. Wow. Great job, great guts. I was 35 when I decided try this.
OF course, all the films on Tuesday had their charm. Later I look forward to seeing films by WIT, The Beta-Macks and Integral Arts. They are always crazy-funny and crazy-talented. Of course, I resent them deeply for it.
Best of luck to everyone!
Mike
- MIke Charbonneau, K.I.S.S. Productions
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The Cherry is poped
This was the whole teams first experience, and what an experience it was. I fully understand why you guys format this contest the way you do. At 2:00am on saturday our whole production team became walking zombies. The sad part was some of us had to wake up in 4 hours to edit. I have no idea how we made it through, however we did make mistakes. I now understand that little smirk you get when you tell someone you are a first timer.lol..
- Rodney Peake, last minute films
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Post-screening
It's the day after our screening, and I think things went rather well last night. We arrived wearing Business Awkward clothing in the VW bus that is featured in the film (despite the fact that no establishing shot of the dern thing made the final edit...doh...) blasting Yazoo. And then we handed out almost exact replicas of the business cards used in the film.
Horray, hurrah, people laughed here and there, and, gratifyingly, at some bits that I wasn't expecting.
I am pretty sure I got to lead the best team in the world and, considering it was most of our first times in the project (my first time leading, after the last two years participating) I think we pulled together a real whiz-banger.
Now to the directors cut....
- Stephen, Sprezzatura
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thank God for creative flow
this was so much fun. When I picked my genre, I knew I could make something I was happy with.
I did the entire project on my own - because I wanted complete creative control and freedom. This turned out to work perfectly.
When I got home, I felt compelled to shoot some, not knowing what I was going to do with it, or what my movie would even be about.
I went inside, and sort of stalled. I ate dinner. I sat around. Then I decided to take a drive out of the city.
I drove around, wrote some lines as I thought of them, and stopped for powder sugar doughnuts and ice tea.
I parked in an empty school parking lot, sort of secluded in the woods. With my convertible top down, I tried hard to think of a story as I looked at the black sky. Then I got creeped out.
I started on my way home, and a line of dialog came to me. And an idea. I parked, wrote it down, and drove home.
I went to my computer, and set the sound up in about 40 minutes. DONE
I shot some more footage, and convinced my boyfriend to be in a scene just before he went to bed. Then on my own I shot for another half an hour.
I came up to my computer, did a very rough cut (also using the footage I shot earlier in the evening), changed some stuff around, and was done by 5:00 am.
When I woke up saturday morning, I tried to make some additions and changes, but nothing felt right, it was finished.
I had planned to be chained to my computer and the project all weekend, day and night. Instead, I went to the farmers market sunday morning, came home, burned the DVD, and turned it in by 3.
It was absolutely crazy. I loved it.
- Dave Peterson, branddave productions
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48 Hour virgins no more
Kind of like running a marathon and reading War and Peace, I've been saying I am going to do 48 Hours for years. Well, this year my co-producer finally convinced me to do it, and what an experience. When it was all done my co-producer asked if there were any moments where I regretted my decision. Only one - at about 3 pm on Saturday, we were behind schedule and still had two more set ups at our current location, and then had to drive an hour away to our next location in Virginia. At the time I didn't think it was going to get done. But everything went pretty smoothly from there on out and I'm pretty proud of our film, considering only one of us in the group had ever done this before. We're screening Wednesday night at 9:30, and I can't wait to see everyone else's efforts. Now, about that marathon... maybe next year...
- Andrew, Unfunded Mandate
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Blast!
This was our first 48 Hour Film experience, although most of the team have worked together many, many times in the past... So one of the joys this time around was not only re-connecting as a group but also going through the entire cycle--conception, execution and post-production, with all the associated highs and lows one normally experiences in such a creative and technical endeavour--super-condensed over a single weekend, like a blast of pure filmmaking adenaline to the heart. By the time Monday morning rolled around I was ready to do it all over again. This stuff is addictive. Ruben, Terry, Shanti, Suzi, William and Robby -- thanks for the ride, hope you like what you see tonight!
- Chris Arth, An Ultramar Production
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2 days away from reality.
When we turned in our movie last year I swore I'd never do it again. But it's amazing what a year and some sleep can do because here I am, doing it again. It's funny because for 2 days you feel like you are part of another world. The world of your film. No one else exists. I remember turning in our film on Sunday and thinking--so what's going on with Hillary and Obama. I came to work Monday and I felt like I just took this big trip to the world of my film and everyone else was still stuck here. We had a blast this year. We drew historical fiction so the movie was set in 1993 during Hillary Clinton's health care reform proposal. It's called, HealthMare!! Spielberg might raise an eyebrow, but Michael Moore would be proud. I met a guy at the drawing who said these movies are in three different categories. Freshman, JV, and Varsity. I'd say last year we were JV as sophomores. We're probably still in JV this year, but hopefully as juniors. I think the screenings are the best part. It's really nice to just go see what people have created in 48 hours and there's just a real nice energy
in the theater. Of course, that could also just be too much wine. :) For those in my group, see you all Wednesday night at 7 PM!
- Lisa Vohra, MonaLisa Productions
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Every Year
Every year I wonder if I can/should attempt this. Every year the film looks different than the story we wrote/ outlined. Every year I feel like I\\\'m on the junior varsity after seeing some of the pro films. Every year the last few hours feel like dismantling a bomb. It almost went off in my face this year trying to compress HDV into the acceptable dv format. Thank God for flash drives. For me this has basically been the highlight of my creative life for the past three years. Sitting the audience the first year I was numb and felt very competitive. Second year I started to laugh and enjoy other films. This year I actually started to talk to other film makers and actually went up to those whose films I remembered and loved from last year and complimented them. I feel a sense of comradery with anyone who does this project (especially wire to wire). What a great experience!
Mike
PS Every year the hardest thing is thinking about what I should have added, changed, deleted etc.
- Mike Charbonneau, K.I.S.S. Productions
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RE: Wow
That's part of the beauty of this project, that you can screw up but still have so much fun that you can't wait to do it again! And each year, you learn from your mistakes (only to make new ones). One of this year's lessons, which we should have learned last year, is that editing always takes longer than you think it will. We ended up having time to make only one copy of the movie; we'll be the folks in Group G with our fingers crossed!
- David Morris, Untied Artists
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....wow
Long story short...our movie turned out to be, not what we expected it to be..lets just leave at that. Those of you who are in the thursday evening screening will understand soon enough lol. Anyway, it was an amazing weekend, filled w/ laughs and good times. Failing miserably however, has me more pumped for next year!! thanks to all the nice people who helped me burn my movie into a dvd, even though i was already 30 min late. I love this stuff...except for the fact that you can only get 3 hours of sleep in 2 days
- Charle Acierto, Washed Up Productions
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always an export problem
This is my 3rd year doing the 48 and every single time we have almost missed the dealine due to not being able to get our movie out of the stinking computer. This year was no exception and amongst other problems I was not able to print a DVD or Data disk because I was having mysterious drive error messages (which I have never experienced before and did not reoccur after Sunday night). Being able to put a Quicktime file on a usb/flash drive totaly saved my ass.
- Matt, Scribble
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Project 48
We had a great time shooting our film. We shot without a written script...just basic scene ideas...then let the actors improvise. And they rose to the task...
Since we're a church group, (FCF Church in Frederick, MD) we attended services Sunday AM, so that cut into editing time.
Although the ending isn't quite what we wanted, the lack of time dictated that we finish editing and hit the road to DC. Final rendering/print to tape and DVD authoring took place in the car heading down 270 at 75MPH. Whew, we made it in time.
Already looking forward to next year.
- Conrad Weaver, Team FCF
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Timing is everything!
Like last year, we had original music in our movie, but we went one step further and incorporated a band playing live into the script. We shot at the Watergate (with permission -- the owner of our company owns the building) and all through the day Saturday a very noiser AC compressor roared. Shortly after we stopped shooting and started editing, the AC kicked off for the rest of the weekend. It was deathly quiet. It was also incredibly hot since we were editing on site. Live and learn!
Still, we managed to keep everyone out of the emergency room this year (the prop maker ended up needing stitches last year!) and we finished!
We drew Cop/Detective. Our movie is called "Swan Song." Here's hoping you can hear it!
- David Morris, Untied Artists
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An Inconvenient Fuel
This weekend began with 2 crew members unable to come to town and help. But it proceeded nicely with 2 new cast members and a cameo by my dog. What more could you ask for? My wife was quite the trooper when, thinking that she could drop off as early as 5 pm, was told that we were the 2nd team to arrive and that entries wouldn't be taken for until 6:30.
In our 3rd year, our team has a definite voice and it shines through our Road Movie, An Inconvenient Fuel.
Looking forward to seeing everyone else's this week.
David
- David Dolinsky, Forty-Eight Rs Media
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The Loins of America (the making of)
This morning my former boss texted and emailed me about 48HFP. Here was my reply about the weekend...
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From: Timothy Lash
Sent: Monday, May 05, 2008 10:28 AM
To: [XXXXX]
Subject: RE: How did the film project go?
It was terrific. I got your text message as I was walking from Metro to the DC office. Sorry for not responding sooner!
The weekend was loads of fun. The genre we pulled on Friday night was "historical fiction" and I stayed up all night Friday writing a short comedy/farce about a pirate who comes ashore in the New World to meet an old friend who sells fur in the woods. We weren't able to line up any experienced actors, so I ended up co-starring with a friend of mine -- I was the pirate, he was the woodsman. I wore an eyepatch, he wore a loincloth...
Shooting took about five hours on Saturday. My sister directed and another friend of ours stayed up all night Saturday to edit over a nonstop 24-hour period. We barely made the Sunday night deadline. Everything turned out well except the closing credits are shaking from side-to-side. It could have been much worse. Our acting was pretty awful -- but we'll see how many laughs we get!
The funniest part of all is that I wrote a scene where the two of us were slapping each other with fish (enormous real two-foot-long fish we bought at a fish market). We shot that scene last. As my friend and I were fighting each other, he accidentally hit me in the face with the fish and it created a 1-2 inch gash in my left cheek that bled profusely (we had to stop shooting).
So today I came into the office and I had to explain to [XXXXX], of all people, why I look as if I got into a fight ... I don't think it helped my case for keeping my job, so now I'm kicking myself for telling her anything.
Oh, we named it "The Loins of America."
Thanks for asking how it went!
Tim
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From: [XXXXX]
Sent: Mon 5/5/2008 10:06 AM
To: Timothy Lash
Subject: How did the film project go?
Well?
- Timothy Lash, Has Been Productions
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Sometimes things work out okay
I drew Historical Fiction and had already vowed I would do an all puppet production no matter what - It a great genre because I have a king and queen and knight etc. - The family really helped with the wife making little costumes and we make a cottage out of sticks and grass clippings from the yard - even the homemade guillotine came out great - see you next year
- Mark McKinney, Actors with String
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