THE 48 HOUR FILM PROJECT - PART 5 OF 5 (THE SCREENING)

With the Actors from my favorite short.

I couldn’t wait, to get back to Las Vegas… During the 48 Hour Film Project, you feel like you’re the only team, but you’re not, there 50 more. And we all experienced our own version of pressure and triumph, so, I was dying to feel part of this collective and not going, wasn’t an option. So, Julia, Mercer & I road tripped out to the great oasis…

The energy was great and I started to feel butterfly’s. The usual stuff, is it good, will it play, any technical problems. To take my mind off of it, I decided we needed to take a few pictures at the DIY Red Carpet, so, we commandeered a passer-by to be our paparazzi. One more martini and it was Showtime…

It was a packed theatre… what were all these people doing here? This was a real world premiere. It was so fucking COOL! The lights went down and it was awesome. The shorts ranged from skill and execution, but I was overwhelmed by the effort and fearlessness of all the teams. I really started to feel lucky that the 48 came in to my life. Sitting there in the dark watching movies all I wanted to do was shoot more, build a bigger and better reel and start dictating my own destiny. All in all, I’d say, a pretty powerful screening.

Afterwards, I got to meet the other filmmakers and we swapped stories and had some laughs. It turns out we’re all the same, we LOVE what we do and there’s nothing that will change that fact. What a blast!

A Special Thank You: To Angela, for putting on an amazing event and for loving filmmakers. To Mark for creating the 48 in the first place and to Liz and Mark for making this craziness available to ALL!

THE 48 HOUR FILM PROJECT - PART 4 OF 5 (THE FINISH LINE)

With Angela, Liz & Mark at the finish line.

After hours of work, it was 5am and we decided to take a short break from editing. We agreed to reengage at 7am. My boots never came off for those two hours of sleep because I was worried I wouldn’t get them back on.

Noel was a machine, he informed us finally that he went out Friday night and was now really paying the price of two all nighters, but he still killed it. Not only did he cut a great piece, he added the coolest effect between scene 1 & 2, cleaned up the sound, color corrected and around 2:45pm added the music. WE STILL NEED TO OUTPUT! Southwest waits for no one. Did I mention the film needed to be delivered in Vegas? I needed to make a 4:30pm flight at LAX, so instead of a 7pm deadline, we had a 4:30pm deadline…

We started outputting at 3pm. I was bummed out that I hadn’t even reviewed the footage from the shoot and that I’d stopped making decisions a long time ago. It had been survival since 11am and we had agreed on a schedule, just like the 48hr guys recommended (www.48hourfilm.com) and at each deadline, it felt like we were letting down the film every time. Any other way and we’d never finish. I made a final run to Staples to make a copy of ALL the paperwork that needed to be turned in with the film and at 3:30pm Noel hands me a MiniDV, a DataDVD and a DVD and without much celebration I was out the door with another deadline.

We pulled up at LAX at 4pm. If I missed this 4:30pm flight, it was over, fuck I was tired…In the security line, I started thinking, why didn’t I throw the editor in a RV this morning and let him edit all the way to The Palms Hotel… We would  have gained almost four more hours. I made the flight with sixty seconds to spare…

We landed on-time, dulling the excitement… The taxi line changed that… I’d only seen lines like that at Disneyland and that’s probably the reason people don’t go back. I was really starting to feel goofy at this point. I checked my watch and I acknowledged the time I’d lost by flying, but relishing in the fact I was done. The first thing I did when I got to The Palm Hotel was order a beer, it was cold and wet and just what I needed for the final inch of this experience. I found the movie theatre and a small table. I turned in the work at 6:45pm.

Time isn’t your friend and I don’t know why, you realize that so late in the game. The best way to describe this exercise is: It’s this amazingly creative experience that, at some point just turns to survival…

There was Deli with tongs for everything and it was good. I finally met Angela and she was alive with excitement. This is a passion for her and you can tell. I felt lucky and grateful to have her there at the finish line… Man I was dead. I met Mark, the creator of this craziness and I thanked him. I told him about my brother and he totally remembered his film from seven years ago… Will he remember ours? I grabbed a picture with them both to prove to myself I did it. Then they excused themselves, because the deadline was quickly approaching. For the next ten minutes, the teams that ran through the door made it and after that they didn’t. For those who didn’t, it was heartbreaking, because I knew what they just put themselves through. I couldn’t watch. I had time for one more beer and then I headed back to the airport.

I got home at midnight. I’d been up for the better part of 72 hours. I passed out.

THE 48 HOUR FILM PROJECT - PART 3 OF 5 (THE SHOOT)

My secret weapons... I love Actors!

6:45pm Friday night, we had been waiting to hear from Mercer & Carla, our REPS in Vegas, Zuleikha answered the phone… “SCI-FI?’ with a look of shock, she put the phone down with an ‘Oh Shit…’.  The Team agonizingly kicked into gear, spitting out their ideas for Sci-Fi, I paced. The phone rings again 15 minutes later… ‘Wild Card? But we didn’t ask for a Wild Card.’, Wild Cards could make Sci-Fi look easy. ‘Surprise Ending?’, ‘Really?!?’, And just like that, we were presented with  the best case scenario by accident.

It was time to write. The parameters were, two actors, three if we had to, one location and above all K.I.S.S. (Keep.It.Simple.Stupid.). We came up with a great idea and Zuleikha started writing. Now we need a location. Julia suggested Rob’s house and we popped in at midnight to see if it was a viable location. It was. Then back home to flush out the script for the 7am call that was rapidly approaching.

Jacked up the next day, I picked up Amit at 6.30am and we headed to Rob’s house, he’d given me a key the night before assuring me he wouldn’t be up to let us in. The location was a bare room. We added a bed. The room needed more, so I ran back to my place with Cy (one of my oldest friends from the Carson Production days) and loaded the car with as much stuff as we could fit.

Paul made six runs to the 99¢ Store and the set finally started to look good. Time to block the scene. My brother Bailey stopped by to make sure the sound mixer he loaned me was working, (he likes good sound and it shows in the final result). As he was testing the sound with his arms extended over his head with the boom, he said, ‘You know I won the audience award for this thing’. It turned out he was a 48 Hour Alum from the second year, with the film ‘Seoul Mates’, adding just a little more pressure of the big brother, little brother variety. We got our first shot off at 10am. Our editor David Noel, another friend of Julia’s, stopped by at noon and we meet face to face for the first time and I give him what we’d shot so far and I wished him luck.

We ate pizza for lunch and then we pounded out the second half of the shots and we wrapped at 7pm. The crew was amazing!!! But this was just the beginning, shooting all day is standard, finishing it completely in twenty hours is something entirely different…

THE 48 HOUR FILM PROJECT - PART 2 OF 5 (THE PREP)

As soon as I left the Hotel, I was lost.

Two weeks ago, Amit Bhattacharya, a Director of Photography, Facebooked me. It had been about 10 years since I’d seen him. He was the D.P. on my brother-in-law’s film, ‘It’s a Shame About Ray’. I saw it as a divine sign and gave him a call. He said YES! We decided to meet for breakfast to discuss the production. We had no script, no location…hmmmm, what the fuck are we meeting about? Anyway, I had eggs benedict and he had a bagel & lox. Mine was pretty good. Here I was at a meeting with my D.P. and we had nothing concrete to discuss. What had I gotten myself into? I was panicking.  I told him that all I had aside from him was two actors and he said, get this, ‘Sounds Good’. Good? That’s it? No panic? Why couldn’t I be that calm? Did I mention he doesn’t drive? Maybe that’s his trick. So, I asked him for his wish list and he coolly asked for a Panasonic PDX100, a couple of C-Stands, some China Balls w/ Dimmers and an Apple Box and a bunch of other stuff we probably wouldn’t need, but who really knows, when you don’t know…

Sitting around was driving me crazy…Fucking Crazy’s more like it! I’d put the TEAM together and now I needed to sort out my options in Vegas, (where to shoot and where to stay,) so I flew out, rented a car and figured out quickly that I knew no one and had no business out there, it’s a different place when you’re not there for the usual reasons, like losing money and hoping for a free room. There was an orientation mixer, but I missed it because I was still on the waiting list and avoiding my girlfriend at the time. So, without a clue to what to do, I ordered room service and read the rules one more time at (www.48hourfilm.com) and realized I wasn’t required to shoot the short in Vegas, I just needed a representative at the kickoff. I couldn’t be more relieved, that’s not true, I could…and tomorrow, the madness will continue…

THE 48 HOUR FILM PROJECT - PART 1 OF 5

You have to be NUTS for the 48.

My attempt at blogging...

Starting with the 48hr Film Project.

On March 24, at the ‘Ready or Not’ DVD release party, a fellow filmmaker, Tommaso, out from New York, mentioned he was going to Las Vegas to make a short. I went home and checked out the website, (www.48hourfilm.com). It looked absolutely NUTS. Who in their right mind would do this? Write, direct and edit a film all within a 48 hour period. I’m a director that likes to take weeks to get an edit right. If I did this I would barely have a day to edit. For me, it’s all about preparation and control. Did I say control?  I didn’t sign up that day.

A few days later my girlfriend asked me if I’d signed up for the 48. I told her I’d ‘check it out’. Little did she know, I had been stewing over the whole thing for days, trying to figure out if I could pull it off…in my head. A day or two had passed before I checked their website again and I decided to at least sign up before time ran out, or rather, my girl pushed me to do it, but it didn’t mean I had to do it. I pushed enter. Too late. They weren’t taking any more teams. I secretly breathed a sigh of relief and put my name on the waiting list. I reported back to my girl that it was too late. The pressure was off and I was in control again.

My Wednesday couples therapy session rolled around. Somehow the main topic of the week became about my fear and apprehension towards the 48 Hour Film Project. The three of us dissected the situation and I realized that I was missing out and I needed to face my fears head on. No control? Fuck ME! I accepted the challenge to just enjoy myself and forget about the pressure I was putting on the whole thing…sounded logical and hypothetical, since I wasn’t selected any way. The next day, the therapy Gods plucked me from the waiting list. It’s funny how life works. SHiT! Vegas here we come…