The Boston 48 Hour Film Project
What Happened During Your Weekend?
The Boston filmmakers share stories from their wild weekend of filmmaking. (Blogging ended shortly after the filmmaking weekend.)
Puppy Love
When you look at Puppy Love three things strike you: we have a dog in the film, there is a naked girl in the film, and there is canabalism in the film. Our genre was Romance and I was determined to give it a twist. Mission Accomplished (in a good way not in that other well known bad way)!
http://laughinginpurgatory.blogspot.com/
- Andrew Hall, Laughing In Purgatory
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How to gain 12 extra hours
This is the fourth time I've done a 48 Hour Film shoot. The first three times I was a writer, but this time due to circumstance I was just helping out a new team as a PA and someone else was the writer.
The new team worked differently than I was used to. Where on my other teams a gaggle of people argued for the first four hours on what they should shoot before handing the writer an idea that he (or she, or they) invariably did not come up with, this team did the radical step of just letting the writer write from the start and shooting what he wrote. The result was that everything happened in an orderly, some might even say logical fashion. A props and costume list was generated at 9pm on Friday. The first draft of the script was done at 10:30 pm. Typically the idea was not even settled upon by 11 pm in my prior experiences, and people weren't ready to evaluate the scripts and needs until they convened on 9-10 am on Saturday.
So teams, my advice to you in the future is this: If you want your 48 hour film to feel as if you had 60 hours to work on it, just let the writer write from the start.
- Greg Lam, Malarkey Films
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Crop Cops
I learned a valuable lesson on this film - be an adult about it and get up at 6am on Saturday to start shooting. We kept it manageable and wrapped by 3pm. Then I was able to barbecue all afternoon. As a one-man production team on this one, simplifying was key... even though I had to indulge myself with a jib and dolly (which i really felt the next day).
- Emile
- Emile Doucette, Bait & Tackle A
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Assorted Thoughts On A Rose
1) Was it crazy to throw down all the money I had saved for a used car on this film?
2) Some filmmakers run on Dunkin. I ran on Dunkin and American Spirits (three packs).
3) Sleep is your friend.
4) Let me repeat: Sleep is your friend.
5) I stayed up all Friday night writing, and by seven in the morning, when I had my entire crew outside waiting for me because I had locked them out of the building, I still didn’t have anything I was satisfied with. Which leads me to six…
6) If you’re having trouble writing, all you need are two things: a good woman by your side and a responsiveness to how you are feeling at that moment. Who knows? Maybe she’ll help you write about that moment of crisis you’re in (I know she did).
7) Something I learned: when making a film, there are friendships and then there is the job. Don’t mix the two. I know I did and I lost some friends.
8) Maybe I should have just DP’d the thing myself considering that the great majority of it was with natural lighting. Hmm…
9) Fights occurred. About half of the crew quit. I was just about as crazy as Francis Coppola during the shooting of Apocalypse Now (as you will eventually see in the documentary we filmed... when I have the guts to let the public see me ranting and raving like Dennis Hopper on Easy Rider).
10) If none of this had gone down, however, the end result would be nothing like it is now. What Choosing Rose is about is what our filmmaking process was about. Sometimes you need to lean on something, whether it’s a lover, a friend, or a wall so you don’t fall over. Just pick yourself up and give it one more try. That’s all I ask.
- Robert Lancto, Clockwise Pictures
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Dr. Sandwich
Producing and acting in a movie 2 weeks after major knee surgery was a bit of a challenge. Final product came out amazing.
- Brian D. Evans, Rocky Media Productions
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craziest/best/worst
We also had an outstanding team that was talented and fun to work with. Very good time over the weekend. Craziest thing that happened was when i got home Sunday night after the dropoff, i put the 3rd copy of the movie in my friend's laptop. Well what started to play was a porno film. i had 3 others ready to watch, they all think i'm kidding, i call my asst producer Chris and tell him "do you think we turned in a porn film by accident" he almost crashed his car, threatened to kill me, threatened to kill our editor, it was hilarious trying to get him calmed down. well we figured out of course it was something stuck on my friend's laptop from the previous owner. and then we erased it.
worst part was not fitting in all my actors, had a few we left out that we had no spots for. other than that we had a pretty seemless shooting day
- Derron Darcy, Crabby Librarians
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Stop Motion
Our Team was Killer! We all knew this was gonna be crazy, but I meet some of the most dedicated talented people this weekend.
Best Part? I have to Pick One? Editing at 6:00 am bouncing around titles, Making the Characters in a Basement, "Nom Nom".
Worst Parts? More Funny but: 3 Flights of Stairs ALL NIGHT LONG. "Man Air", Showering at last then having someone Knock on the door and Yell "Don't Drink the Water!!"
Come Join our Fan Page: http://bit.ly/48hfpMustachio
- Alecia Orsini Lebeda, Chouhood Productions, Benjamin Chou
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subtitles
I cast one guy in our film who has a thick boston accent. Not only was he harassed all day by cast and crew but then it was suggested we have subtitles for his line for comedic value. He comes from the same part of Dorchester I do. I am not amused...
- Bryan Mckeon, 4th Avenue Tamale Parlour
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Craziest thing?
One of our actors painted a large soccer ball on her very large 8 month pregnant belly. Talk about commitment and dedication to the 48! We have photos! Find us on Facebook under Soccer Moms: A Musical. :)
- Karen Webb, New Tricks Productions
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