48-Hr Film Festival - San Diego Style
For the second year in a row, Yarry and I spent the majority of the weekend helping friends produce a small movie. The 48-Hr Film Festival is an event staged in cities both across the country and around the world. From 7:00 p.m. Friday night to EXACTLY 7:00 p.m Sunday night, teams are charged with the task of producing, writing, filming and editing a 6-7 minute movie. All participating teams are given 3 things in common to work with: a prop, a character name and a line of dialogue. The only difference from team to team is the genre of movie. Genres are assigned at random with every participating team getting something different.
At 6'4", Yarry is generally recruited for sound work, as his height helps with handling the boom mike. I have a reputation for being somewhat detail oriented (translation: anal) and for the last 2 years have been given assistant producer responsibilities, as entry into the festival necessitates a painful stack of releases and other assorted paperwork. Just like last year, duties and roles adapt and change. No matter what official job title you're given, everybody just pitches in whenever and however they're needed. Yesterday was a 16 hour day involving 5 shooting locations, technical snafus requiring creative solutions, the never ending search for just the right prop and, by the end of it, feet so sore that double amputation seemed like a welcome option. With filming wrapping at just after 10:00 p.m. last night, the ball (and mountains of stress)is now in our editor's court. I'm certain that, despite my recommendations, sleep did not come for her as early as it did for Yarry and I.
All in all, an amazing experience that I look forward to repeating again next year (just don't tell my feet that yet...they're still quite annoyed with me). This experience also gives me even greater respect for those who do this for a living. I'm certain that the pros have the process more finally tuned than amateurs like us, but still, the amount of time, energy and stress that went into a simple 7 minute movie makes me believe that those filming something like an hour long drama in a week's time must truly be masochists.
At 6'4", Yarry is generally recruited for sound work, as his height helps with handling the boom mike. I have a reputation for being somewhat detail oriented (translation: anal) and for the last 2 years have been given assistant producer responsibilities, as entry into the festival necessitates a painful stack of releases and other assorted paperwork. Just like last year, duties and roles adapt and change. No matter what official job title you're given, everybody just pitches in whenever and however they're needed. Yesterday was a 16 hour day involving 5 shooting locations, technical snafus requiring creative solutions, the never ending search for just the right prop and, by the end of it, feet so sore that double amputation seemed like a welcome option. With filming wrapping at just after 10:00 p.m. last night, the ball (and mountains of stress)is now in our editor's court. I'm certain that, despite my recommendations, sleep did not come for her as early as it did for Yarry and I.
All in all, an amazing experience that I look forward to repeating again next year (just don't tell my feet that yet...they're still quite annoyed with me). This experience also gives me even greater respect for those who do this for a living. I'm certain that the pros have the process more finally tuned than amateurs like us, but still, the amount of time, energy and stress that went into a simple 7 minute movie makes me believe that those filming something like an hour long drama in a week's time must truly be masochists.