Making movies...

Last year, I was part of a '48 hour film' challenge project. The crew is not paid, you don't sleep, you bust ass to get a tiny short done. The general gist of it is that you get a line to use, an object to incorporate, and a theme. Friday to sunday, then you watch them the upcoming week, and the audience votes. Many cities have them, and the entries go from teenagers with camcorders to one entry where I know for a fact they used a crane/Boom camera to get some shots.

Our team (mostly coworkers) drew the Sci Fi theme. I swear we did not bribe anyone! The movie we did had a few technical problems, which ended up making it a 52 hour film for a 48 hour film fest (*automagically disqualified, but still screened!). The tiny version they host on their website also has our aspect ratio wrong - part of the problem is that we were shooting with digital high def equipment... and the sound is wonky. But check it out! Most of those actors will (someday!) been seen in the Midnight Chronicles...

In any case, looks like we'll be doing it again. Check out last years entry here:
ww2.48.tv/bin/index.cfm/id/55907ce1-44af-476f-9714-c1e17a322e39

*edit* I should have checked the link. that is not directly linking to ours. I need to see if I can find a better link... it's minneapolis and called 'The Last' I think. Genre sci fi...

Also. The star of the whole movie is my cat. No really. She was being manhandled by futuristic shocktroopers and still purring. Not too many cats would stay in the corner of a 'jailcell' (warehouse set) when 30 strange people surrounding, bright lights, and boom mic was pointed at her. As aside, I was the lighting and set person, and I made the texture on the walls by spraypainting through punched cardboard game token sprues.

The last time I did a 48 hour film challenge we pulled "Western or musical". Which are arguably the two hardest possible genres to do in the constraints. So we said "fuck it", and made a western musical. Not some trumped-up modern western shit, we made an actual oater with full costumes (thank you 24 hour Wal Mart in a Hispanic neighborhood), real songs recorded and written by this shut-in weirdo that re-records entire Rush albums for kicks, and actual horses. My religious fanatic sister owns a horse ranch, so we were halfway home on the location alone. I was DP and got to indulge all my Sergio Leone moves.

We won awards for best sound and music and came in second overall. The short is actually pretty funny- we have the classic "magical black man" trope, a kid that gets shot by accident in a gunfight and comes back from the dead (in a wheelbarrow) through the power of song, a crazy fast-talking sheriff, and an Iraq war subtext. Everybody did their own singing, which was awesome. "What's going on here/all this blood on the range/another big gundown/but will anything change?" Hilarious.

If I can dig it up, I'll post it so you guys can see it...it's called "The Rusty Old Bike"...

That was pretty cool. The production quality was excellent, you had some talented people crewing for you. I was especially impressed with the lighting. Not only were the actors lit well and professionally, but the interesting lighting choices for the locations helped to give it a futuristic feel.

The story was pretty engaging as well for a 4 minute short. Did you come up with an outline in advance, or did you write it on the fly within the 48 hours?

Ive always wanted to participate in one of these but I always seem to find out about them after the signup date is past.

I've been getting more and more into the scifi genre...the world definitely has a hunger for some good science fiction shows or films. Now that the horror market has become so saturated, I think Scifi is the only genre left that is really underrepresented in the market place.

Good luck on this years entry.

Michael Barnes wrote:

The short is actually pretty funny- we have the classic "magical black man" trope, a kid that gets shot by accident in a gunfight and comes back from the dead (in a wheelbarrow) through the power of song, a crazy fast-talking sheriff, and an Iraq war subtext. Everybody did their own singing, which was awesome. "What's going on here/all this blood on the range/another big gundown/but will anything change?" Hilarious.

If I can dig it up, I'll post it so you guys can see it...it's called "The Rusty Old Bike"...

Sounds like "Cannibal the Musical" one of my favorite musicals of all time. Please post a link if you can find it...a western/zombie crossover is something I always thought would be cool as well.

I'd like to see some more attempts at serious science fiction myself...not effects/action movies with SF trappings, something more in line with Delany, Zelazny, Dick, Ellison, or Disch than Lucas, Rodenberry, or (god fucking help us) Whedon. Something that's more intellectually interesting than "Wee! Robot and spaceship rox!"

DHALGREN: THE MOTION PICTURE. Yes.

Ok, just to make sure that you saw the same one - when linked I got a random one. Did the one you see involve alot of red lighting and an extremely fuzzy butter colored cat?

Ah! Just the 'The last' into search function.

extremely fuzzy butter colored cat

I'm throwing this one out to the floor...is that worth a ban?

Michael Barnes wrote:

extremely fuzzy butter colored cat

I'm throwing this one out to the floor...is that worth a ban?

I think anything cat-related should be discussed by the banning committee.

Was the cat in a box?

Adrian Bolt wrote:

Was the cat in a box?

I'm sorry, you drove me to it...

farm3.static.flickr.com/2335/2168758181_9e4da7f6a5.jpg

I will take my banning with good humor

edit - your're lucky the image seems to refuse to embed in the post. But that is my extremely fuzzy butter colored cat in a box top from Colonial Diplomacy.

Thaadd wrote:

Ok, just to make sure that you saw the same one - when linked I got a random one. Did the one you see involve alot of red lighting and an extremely fuzzy butter colored cat?

Ah! Just the 'The last' into search function.

Nope. Maybe I praised someone's random movie? The one I saw had two guys in the future who were being questioned about something. They had found evidence of God, but the interrogators weren't interested in that, they were preoccupied with objects the 2 men had been collecting. Then at the end God's in this box....

Whats the title of your movie?

Has anyone here seen "Primer"? It was a very good serious "hard" scifi made about 5 years ago about time travel. It was very good, and made with only 5k dollars. Its widely available on DVD, won a bunch of festivals and stuff. Definitely look into it if you like serious scifi fare.

Like it! I'm envious of the decently large gaming table, very nice.
And now I'll have to go click on the film link.

And I'm back. Pretty impressive, great style, good ending.

OK, now Ive seen YOUR movie titled "The Last". I liked the prison atmosphere...whoever put together your sets on such short notice did a good job.

The sound had some problems but thats to be expected I guess given the limited time frame.

Was the cat the object you had to use? Because it was woven into the story much better than the other short I saw, where the objects just kind of show up.

Kriz wrote:
"Has anyone here seen "Primer"? ... It was very good,"
With a name like that it would have to be. You KNOW what the bad reviews would be saying.

While Thaadd's case is under review (she's not exactly scoring any points with the committee linking to things like...that), I will say that PRIMER was pretty darn good. It had too much of that "been to film school" feel to it (which is too often mistaken for "scrappy charm") and I don't think the writing holds up to close scrutiny, but Crom bless 'em for trying to do a real science fiction picture with a zero dollar budget. And not a bad one at that. Special effects? A box and some duct tape. Literally.