The 48 Hour Film Project

Jason Harbaugh · 07-16-2005, 06:12 PM

Write, shoot, edit, and score a short film in 48 hours.

The catches are that you are randomly given a film genre, a character that must show up, a prop that must show up, and a line of dialogue that must be read, all 15 minutes before the startoff.

I'm leading a team this year in Denver for the contest which begins the weekend of the 29th. They are going to something like 25 cities this year. Their site.

Just curious if anyone else has participated in any of these limited production time short film festivals before and if they have any pointers.

I got the DVD of last years "best of 2004" and the films range from mediocre at best to wow impressive for 48 hours. I just hope I don't end up in the latter, not the former. :b

Vince Maskeeper · 07-16-2005, 10:44 PM

This is also done in LA as 'instafilm.' I have several friends who spend a weekend doing these. I can't find the website now, but will post the link once i find it...

The LA ones, the writers draw 2 words (adj/noun) from a hat for their script basis.

The best one I saw, they shot at the DP's house, so he had all his lighting and gear right there- and resulted in an amazingly pro production.

I don't know how you select your actors: but the best ones I've seen have been largely based in the quality of the actors.

-V

Jason Harbaugh · 07-16-2005, 11:17 PM

That sounds cool. There is another one going on this weekend nationally called Filmerica. Same premise.

I do video production for a living so have all the pro gear at my disposal. Actors is a mixed bag. I'm using mostly people from the improv group I'm in. They're great at writing stories though. I'm getting a little nervous, hoping I can actually pull this thing off.

At the very least, my completed film will be shown on a movie screen downtown. That should make it worth it.

Vince Maskeeper · 07-17-2005, 10:51 PM

http://www.instantfilms.tv/

You can watch some of the movies online.

Check out the lighting and camerawork on: 'The Sound of Slyness.'
The DP shot this at his house and so had a wide array of gear right there, without having to transport.

And also watch 'Free Lunch for Brad Whitman' and 'The Perfect Candidate'.
Both of these featured an actor named Pat Towne, who really made mediocre scripts a lot more funny.

You might learn something by watching them all, at the very least you might have some 'what not to do' lessons.

Jason Harbaugh · 07-18-2005, 12:30 AM

Excellent, thanks Vince.

**HTF Ads**

Jason Harbaugh · 07-29-2005, 08:41 PM

So this is the weekend, just had the kickoff event and my team drew Comedy.

This shouldn't be too hard considering my whole team is my comedy improv troupe.

Now we got 48 hours, so I'll show you the film monday. Wish us luck!!

Jason Harbaugh · 08-01-2005, 02:45 PM

Well the weekend is over, and I'm tired as hell.

My team consisted of 5 people, and unfortunately I was the only one who knew the equipment so that meant all lights, camera, sound etc were in my hands and we ended up with about 20 location setups. It was a lot of work, and a few problems along the way, like the audio mixer was on the fritz hurting our audio.

The Genre: Comedy
The Prop: Screwdriver
The Character: P. Owens (Sanitation Worker)
The Line: "It's my way or the highway."

We wrote the script Friday night and finished around 3am.

Got some sleep, started shooting saturday morning. Wasn't until noon before we first rolled tape. First setup was long.

After that things started rolling. Finished taping 3:30 in the morning. I took everything home, loaded the footage while I slept, shot over 2 hours of footage, for a 5 minute short.

I still had one major shot that needed to be done, but we lost our light on Saturday so I had to schedule that in while editing. I started editing and had lots to cut cut cut. So many shots, so many little details. Let alone that I still had to score the music that afternoon.

Finished the roughcut around 3:30pm. Headed downtown for the final shot I needed, location was scrapped and had to go figure out a new spot. Found it, shot it, and then headed to another studio to record the music. Took about an hour to score the film and the keyboard player was great.

Took that back to my studio, mixed the audio in, added a few sound fx that were missing. Deadline of 7:30 was coming close. I was printing to tape at 7:10. The drop off point was 15 minutes away. Finished printing tape at 7:20. I snatched that tape out, drover faster than I ever have on these roads, parked illegally, ran into the drop off point and had 2 minutes to spare.

Needless to say, it was a lot of work with some fun mixed in there.

It sucked that not one, but two camera guys had to drop out before we began so that left me as the lonesome tech guy, as well as one of the lead actors. But all in all, we came through. Didn't get to do everything I wanted, or fine tune a few of the shots and add some fx in post, but overall it turned out alright.

You can view it here:
http://www.lynxfx.com/movies/

ThomasC · 08-01-2005, 09:02 PM

Very nice, Jason! A couple of the physical comedy bits had me laughing out loud.

Jason Harbaugh · 08-01-2005, 10:38 PM

Thanks Thomas.

I learned a lot about what I would do differently for the next time. This film turned out as a kind of subdued comedy. lol

The public screening is tomorrow at the Stars Film Center in Denver. Nervous about what the public reaction will be, and I'm really curious as to what the other teams did. I heard one team completely blew up at each other and half the people quit, the director was yelling at each other, and who knows if the film got completed. Talk about taking it too seriously.

Jason Harbaugh · 08-04-2005, 02:09 PM

It screened twice to sold out audiences and the overall reaction was greater than I could have ever wanted. Nothing like hanging out in the back of a packed theater with your film up on the screen and the audience actually getting into it and laughing and cheering when it is over.

It was very interesting to see the other films as well and see what people came up with. To be brutally honest, some where absolutely horrible, but then there were some that were clever, great production values, and entertaining. I was really surprised at how many had original scores, and really good music to boot.

We should find out the winners of the official awards and the audience favs next week.