48 Hours to Make Art - Posted 6/24/09

This past weekend, Saturday to be specific, I was involved in the national 48 Hour Film Project (the Seattle section). I was in a short film entitled Now and Hereafter, as one of the two principal characters. It was incredibly fun. There are a bunch of rules for the contest, but the main point is this: they have exactly 48 hours to write, shoot, and edit a short that is between four and seven minutes long. Whoa. Intense.

The production company I was working with got their genre (part of the contest) on Friday night (Sci-Fi, oh joy!), and wrote the script all the way through the night. I got on set at 9am Saturday morning, read the script twice, and we were off like rabbits scurrying across a busy road. First stop: finish my costume, then off to the beach to start filming near the end of the script. What? Filming the end first? I know, I know, we all hear this happens, but when it happens to you, it's a little disconcerting. How am I supposed to feel at this moment? Am I happy now, or scared still? How much time has passed? WHERE is the continuity? It doesn't exist. That was really strange. The last two scenes filmed at the end of the day were the very first scene, and the very last scene - one right after the other. By that time I had no idea what was going on anymore, haha! Oh, but I still had a great time. The other weird thing was that I didn’t memorize the lines, and when I suggested that I do so, they looked at me like I was crazy. “Memorize? What do you think this is, the stage?” Ha, well, yes, I suppose I did. Apparently, I didn’t need to because you shoot one scene at a time, and just run through them real quick before each scene. That’s it. SO strange!

So, last night was the screening of the short (along with 12 others competing), and it was very strange to watch myself acting…I can’t even tell you how weird. I don’t think it was awful, but it probably won’t win. The best one, by far, was a stop animation historical genre short. Oh man, it was GOOD. To sum up, it was a great whirlwind experience, and the people I worked with were fabulous. I’d do it again tomorrow if you asked me to.You can find out more about the project here: http://www.48hourfilm.com/


Anyway, it’s time to go, work day is almost over and I’m off to yet another audition!