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48-Hour Film Project leaves audience cringing |
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Monday, 21 August 2006 |
by LINDSAY CRAVEN
Lifestyles Editor
The 48-Hour Film Project in Greensboro is a growing phenomenon where anyone from the most talented to the most inexperienced can express themselves visually.
Participants have 48 hours and whatever equipment and team members they can scrape up to create a seven-minute movie to the best of their ability.
The project began in 2001 with creator Mark Ruppert.
Since its start, the project has grown to a nationwide event with up to 300,000 participants to date, according to the project’s Web site.
This year’s 48-Hour Film Project took place July 21-23.
There were a total of 36 teams turning in films, 26 of which were eligible for competition in all prize categories.
I had the opportunity to join the Strong Arm Productions team in its quest to make an award winning short film.
This is our 48-hour quest.
Friday Night:
Starting 7 p.m. on July 21, teams gathered in a local Greensboro pub
waiting to draw the genre of film they would have to make for their
project.
At this point the teams had no genre, no dialogue and no shot list.
Action/adventure, comedy, detective/cop, drama, fantasy, holiday film,
horror, mockumentary, musical or western, road movie, romance, sci-fi,
silent film and spy are potential genres to be drawn.
The teams also receive a line of dialogue (“It’s like my mother always
said…”), a prop (bubble wrap) and a character (TV personality Barbara
or Ben Jones) who had to appear in each teams’ movie.
At 7:15 p.m. we got a call from our director, Jay Brown, who said we
had drawn the science fiction genre and had to send people out with
their delegated money to purchase the necessities to create our movie.
When everyone returned to the hotel room we began writing our story
line and dialogue, as well as writing out the various camera shots we
wanted to capture with each scene.
By the end of our brainstorming session we had developed an idea of our
two main characters, Bruce and Chuck, who work in a comic shop.
Bruce becomes convinced that comic books are revealing that the
government has implanted microchips in our brains and once the chip is
removed people are able to think on all new planes of thought.
He even removes his own chip.
These crazy ideas begin to scare Chuck, so Bruce spends a majority of
the movie trying to convince Chuck he too needs to remove his chip. In
the end, Chuck finds himself tied up in a bathtub at the hands of Bruce.
After developing the plot, we were ready to retire for about three
hours of sleep before waking up Saturday morning to go to our first
location.
Saturday Morning:
We were up at 7 a.m. and ready to head out to our first location, Beef Burger.
This is where we shot the scene where Bruce shows Chuck the microchip he found in his neck.
This scene was shot at several different angles, ranging from the top
of the restaurant itself looking down on
the characters, to shots over
the character’s shoulder.
We spent about two hours in the restaurant shooting and re-shooting scenes to get the best possible cuts.
We then had to take the footage back to our editor, John Black, to begin work on putting together the movie.
Once we got the final shots from every angle, we had our location
releases signed and headed back to our hotel to shoot more scenes.
Our first scene in the hotel was Bruce in his apartment when he discovers his microchip. This step required little camera work.
The next step was referred to as “the bathroom torture scene.”
In the movie, Bruce kidnaps Chuck and takes him back to his apartment to “help” Chuck remove his microchip.
This scene required lots of cinematic blood and an explanation to the
hotel manager of why there was so much
chaotic screaming going on.
There was restricted space trying to fit our actors, directors and
makeup guys into a hotel rest room, so it took much longer to shoot
than we expected.
Our next location was reserved at Acme Comic Book Shop, which we only had from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Since the main characters and camera crew were still shooting the
torture scene, the lighting crew and I went
ahead to set up the
lighting for the final shots of the film.
Once everyone arrived, we started on what would ultimately be the end of the filming for the day.
The comic book shop provided both the comic relief and story line portions of the movie.
The team ran into a problem when a loud thunderstorm rolled in during
shooting. The sound of the storm was picked up and covering dialogue.
Despite the storm, overall the shooting went well.
We finally retired to the hotel and began the tedious task of editing all the shots into a final take.
Sunday:
After another three hours of sleep for the directors, Brown, Hart and I and an all-night editing spree for Black.
We began to look at the footage and came up with twists and cuts to make the movie as creative and unique as possible.
We also had to develop our beginning and end credits.
The editing process took the remainder of the day, but when it came
time to make a DVD copy the computer crashed and credits were lost.
This ultimately forced our team to turn in the film late and exclude us
from eligibility for awards other than crowd favorite at the showing
the following weekend.
The 48-Hour Film Project experience allows you to see how creativity
and talent can create an amazing project in as small a time as two
days.
In a summer of dull, humdrum activities such as work and pool side
leisure, I found a new hobby and ability to express myself creatively.
To find out more about the 48-Hour Film Project or to see some of the
completed films from past contests, visit www.48hourfilm.com.
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