The San Francisco 48 Hour Film Project

What Happened During Your Weekend?

The San Francisco filmmakers share stories from their wild weekend of filmmaking. (Blogging ended shortly after the filmmaking weekend.)

Two

First, let me say that you should seriously check out our photos from behind the scenes, our crime scene photos, our downloadable poster, and even our free comic book! It's all at the "two" website: http://www.audronis.com/two

We went for a cheesy 70's b-movie theme. I think we got it. Going crazy with glow, contrast, grain, and tint; we were able to get a gnarly over-exposed / heavy bloom look. Our script? We wanted to go down the revenge route, but how to end it? dramaticly? No. We needed cheese. Remember in 5th grade creative writing when you didn't know how to end a story, and you'd say "and a nuclear bomb dropped, and everyone died." Well, we figured we'd take it to the next level (don't you just love cliche statements like that?). Having our villain transform into sasquatch and get hit by a car (then get decapitated by one of our main characters) definitely gave us that 70's cheese, a surprise ending, and something humorous to boot.

The hardest part about making this film? Shooting 8 camera angles on every shot while only having 2 cameras. Shooting... reshooting, it was a pain! We literally shot the whole thing one line at a time, and from at least 4 angles per line.

Special thanks: Rockstar and Monster. For without your cool crisp beverages, we would not have made it through post, and we would not be at risk for heart attacks.

- Ty Audronis, The Compost Heap

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The Purple Guitar; and Team

This isn't our first year here, probably it won't be our last. Gremlins abound in this kind of race. The trouble is that when we've conquered one set of the creatures, we inevitably go looking for another set of problems. Or, is it just us?

In support of "The Roxie", I'll suggest that the smallish venue was perfect to rake the embers that are us film-makers into a tight enough group to start a flame. This leaving 5 seats between each other in a too large theater has a cooling effect. Eclectic, out of the mainstream, and entertaining is how I see the Roxie, and that is a lot like al of us.

This year we "team wrote" for the first time without an accomplished, esteemed, specialized writer (coddled, spoiled, pampered, and flattered). BUT at 3pm Sat. we were still typing! As Director, I put on my "trust me, we do this all the time" face. However, inside I was starting to sweat about the lack of shooting time.

What they delivered was a beautiful 2 page script that played to their strengths and was easy to shoot. I couldn't have asked for more (or in this case less #pages.).

No, we didn't have time for everything we wanted to do. Our cutoff was 5:30 in S.J. Maybe that is the secret, leave with the feeling of "Next-time", maybe next-time . . . . .and so, see you "next-time".

- Robin Edwards, Midnight Cowbells

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What you can do with a Musical or Western genre

Our team had participated in three previous 48 Hour Film Projects and we were joking around saying "what if we get Western, or Musical?" We didn't think that could happen to us, but it did! Choosing the Musical was an easier route for us since I had choreographed dance and I had one or two people on my team that had danced before. We didn't have any singers though so it was kind of tricky. But you know you do what you can in that short period of time and I think we produced a good film!

Our film "Changing Tempos" was a lot of fun to do. We filmed it a local park by my home in San Francisco called Brooks Park which was a very public park, but yet somewhat secluded.
We filmed there practically the whole day without an interruption and the view was spectacular. The challenge was having "non-dancers" as actors which actually worked because the whole film became a comedy. We didn't intend it to be that, it just turned out that way. We were laughing the whole time at the playbacks and through the rough cut, but weren't sure how the audience would react to it. Well, we were quite pleased at the screening when quite a few people really liked what we did!

We had a great cast and crew that worked together really well! You have to have that cohesive component and yet, everyone also lent a little bit of themselves to the film! We knew that whatever we did, we were committed to the project and we were going to see it through no matter what!

All in all, it was the best experience in filmmaking I've had so far! Special thanks to the cast and crew of AMP for their hard work and dedication and for the 48 Hour Film Festival for letting us be ourselves!

- Maria Fe Picar, Asian Mainstream Productions

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Once in a Blue Moon, You Get to See a Team of Collaborators

Participation in the 2009 San Francisco 48 Hour Film Project takes you on an enlightening and inspiring ride that reveals something beyond capitalizing on a volunteer opportunity in the "West Bay," the 13th most populous metropolitan city in the United States of America.

This 2-day event offers unpaid trainees a grueling educational experience incorporating a variety of different performance roles. It was astonishing to observe everyone make sense of a randomly assigned genre with the required and assigned elements.

It is indeed a rare occurrence to be captivated for an entire weekend by an adroit display of talent.

The film short produced by an improbable band of apt fellows reflects the ingenuity and creativity of a team of collaborators and furthers my admiration for what they do best.

It was a privilege and an honor to be their team leader.

TEAM ROSTER

Jamie Wede
Jeremy Stevermer
Tracey Milne
Jason Tse
Yin Song
Jan Van Tassel
Alex Barker
Andre Carter II
Sepehr Zanani
Tad Barker
Rosie Cruz
Marna Armstead
Aleja Cobarruviaz
Zoriyah Carter

For Credits Submitted to the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

CREW
Jamie Wede, Director
Jeremy Stevermer, Director of Photograpy/Editor
Jason Tse, Music Composer
Tracey Milne, Producer
Rauhmel Fox, Executive Producer
Yin Song, Production Assistant
Jan Van Tassel, Camera Assistant
Sepehr Zanani, Camera Assistant
Andre Carter II, Grip

TALENT
Alex Barker, Courier Guy
Jan Van Tassel, Courier Boss
Tad Barker, Thief
Marna Armstead, Mother
Aleja Cobarruviaz, Daughter
Zoriyah Carter, Daughter's friend
Tracey Milne, Mother's friend
Yin Song, Pedestrian
Jamie Wede, Claude Green
Rosie Cruz, Stage Manager

To view the film:
http://www.WHOmentors.com/48HFPSF2009.htm

I highly recommend my teammates for other projects. To contact any person highlighted, contact me directly:

Rauhmel Fox, CEO
WHOmentors.com, Inc.
110 Pacific Avenue, Suite 250
San Francisco, California 94111
Phone/SMS Text: 415-373-6767
E-Mail: Rauhmel@WHOmentors.com

- Rauhmel Fox, CEO, WHOmentors.com, Inc.

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Learning from past mistakes

2009 in SF CA was my 4th 48HFP, having done two last year (here and Portland) and one in Portland in 2007. Each time you learn something new, and what I learned and applied this year can be summed up like this.

1. Maybe = No. If people waffle about being on your team, find someone gung ho to do it. Don't waste time with people who you think will flake, because they will.

2. Do everything you can (within the rules) before the contest starts. This means mundane things like creating spreadsheets with cast and crew that can be used to do all the tracking, act as call sheets, and be tapped to create the end credits, discussing how and where you can get sound effects, discussing production pipelines, etc. Do all the mundane planning stuff first, and allow yourself to put your energy into being creative when the contest starts, rather than trying to figure out logistics when you should be shooting.

3. Pick a Visually Interesting Location and Stick with it. Our biggest coup was having an amazing location lined up a month in advance, which allowed my cinematographer to figure out what our equipment list would need to be, AND, since the team knew what kind of environment we'd be shooting in, and when we finally drew a genre, they could start getting props and costumes together while we were writing the script instead of waiting for the script to come in. We had an airplane, but we got Western of Musical, but we did it on the plane, and it forced us to be super creative.

4. Rehearse. It's tempting not to due to time. but while the crew was setting up the first scene, I say with all the actors and we read through the script a couple of times, made line adjustments, etc. This also allowed the cast to ask questions about their characters and story points. They were then able to make effective use of off-camera time working on rehearsals.

5. Block out action off set. We were shooting in an airplane, and the quarters were cramped, so we'd plunk chairs down outside in the layout of the cabins and we'd work out the action there before actually going on set.

6. Keep people fed. Always. A fed crew is a happy crew.

7. Bring a bottle of champagne. We toasted the wrap of principle photography, and it ended the day in an upbeat way, and made everyone feel like we'd accomplished something.

8. Test every aspect of video output. We ran into a problem we didn't foresee when rendering out to SD because it only showed up when the editor blew up a few shots and it rendered wonky. Lesson: shoot test footage with the camera you'll be using, do various editing effects on it, and output it and make SURE it works the way you want before you get into the production.

- MAURICE MOLYNEAUX, Fogbelt 2880

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Third Time's A Charm

I think I can honestly say that our team had a great time at the weekend. We went into the competition to make friends and make existing friendships stronger. We totally suceeded in doing that. There was not a bad word between anyone, no egos - just a great team getting on with it. We had 18 crew members and 7 cast members. This meant that no one was streched to the limit. The stress level was very low for the whole weekend. This was our first time in the competition and I hope will be back next year.
Our team's blog is at
http://westenders.wordpress.com/

- Nigel Ellis, West Enders

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have fun! get it done!

This was my second year participating in the San Francisco 48 Hour Film Project. The director of my team and I spent some time at the end of our marathon brainstorming ways to make this particular process better and more efficient. The biggest questions on our minds the whole time (not just at the end of our run) boiled down to these three concerns.

What’s the best crew to assemble?
How to maximize such limited time?
What kind of tech is best for these conditions?

For more of our thoughts and experiences, check here.
http://www.gunghogirl.com/2009/06/48hfp09/

We'd love to hear production feedback and input from other 48HFP aficionados. Thanks 48HFP for hosting a great challenge every year. (^_^)

- gungho girl, Taza Films

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