Guerrilla Film Making At Its Finest

The previous post was from the blog spot on the 48-hour film project. This, if you don’t know what it is, is a national film makers project that gives, us (film makers) the opportunity to see if we can hold up under the pressure of creating a 7 minute film in 48 hours. The kicker is you can’t write the film until you get the information from the Producers of the 48-hour film project.

Friday, August 7, 2009

There was a hum everywhere in the air. Artwork sat against the walls as primarily men filled the meeting area. There was a bobbing of heads here and there checking to see whom the ‘new kids’ were. Team members, chit, chatted back and forth with anxious postures -- some of them -- accept those ‘who knew what to expect.’ It is surprising that only 1 in 10 people here is a woman -- filmmaking is still overwhelmingly male dominated.

The crew’s are meeting with the BIG PRODUCERS of the 48-hour film project to get our Genre. Each team pulls from the hat, you get a genre then, or you can put it back and wait for the catch all genres they pick at the end. We pulled Fantasy -- This means that our film has to have the elements of a fantasy film -- something like “Legend,” “Star Wars,” they are flights of fancy films that have elements of myth and magic in them.

A couple of the team members weren’t too sure about doing the fantasy genre, but I assured them it would be fine, and that I could write a script for anything (no matter what the genre was we picked).

So then, we waited for the next elements that had to be incorporated into the film. First was a prop. Each team has to use the same prop in their film. The prop was a “present,” and it did not have to be wrapped.

Next, we had a character that had to be incorporated into each team’s film. The character was Alan or Alana Beaumont and they had to be a Phony. Guess what that means. They had to be someone they weren’t. It was a bit vague to be sure, but okay, I can handle that.

Last, we got a single line of dialogue. It was, “that’s never happened before.”
Okay we had all our elements for the film, we had to make a fantasy film, with a present, which included a character Alan or Alana Beaumont who was a phony and someone had to say the line “that’s never happened before.”

“GO MAKE YOUR MOVIE” the producer shouted at the group of people who were standing around. Everyone and I mean everyone made a B’line for the door. The films had to be turned in completed with all the paperwork by 7:30 on Sunday. That evening with information in hand, I set out to complete my first task, making the script into something “fantasy related” that incorporated all our needed items. By three o’clock on Saturday morning, we had a script and it was emailed to everyone on the team. -- First task completed. It wasn’t a blockbuster-writing job, but it would make them laugh (the audience).

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Saturday morning at 10:00 a.m. everyone (except the sleeping writer) invaded en masse at the Allegheny Country Club swimming pool to shoot the majority of our film. They were kind enough to allow us the use of their pool without payment. I can’t say enough about how wonderful they were to us, and how interested the members of the club were in what we were doing.

I made my way to the pool around 11:30 a.m. just in time for the beginning of major shooting. Aaron our cinematographer filmed much of the opening sequence before I arrived (mostly second unit stuff) -- he has a fabulous eye for beauty in simplicity, and I was happy he was part of the team. Aaron conferred with me when I arrived, they were already ‘off script’ -- shooting things out of order, and so adjustment in the story line had to be made, on the fly. Not a major deal, but an issue nonetheless. I didn’t want to waste another couple of hours trying to re-shoot the opening, so we just adapted. “Be the willow, not the oak.” Bend with the problems don’t cause more. We didn’t have time to re-shoot; we would work around the problem. We shot everything except 2 very small scenes in the 7 hours at the pool. Then everyone was off to eat and finish the last 2 scenes after dinner.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Editing started that night -- Aaron started splicing shots together. He had the majority of the film done by 1:00 p.m. on Sunday. I came in for final sound check, music placement and to double check continuity -- which I was amazed was exceptional considering no markers were placed for cameras during the entire shoot. Our composer Josh, a one-man wonder, scored the entire film in a single evening while Aaron cut and spliced and worked his magic. 6:00 p.m. Sunday, Aaron burned the film to DVD and flash drive -- and Kirsten our producer (that girl is a genius when it comes to finding things) strolled out the door to deliver our film.

Thursday the 13th of August, at 7:00 p.m. is the premier of our collaboration. 15 Actors and 3 additional crewmembers (I, Aaron and Josh) will see our film on the big screen. 48 hours in the making -- 8 minutes 12 seconds on screen. Not a second of that time is regretted.

This is guerrilla film making at its finest.

I will tell you all about the premier if you are unable to attend.