The Pittsburgh 48 Hour Film Project
What Happened During Your Weekend?
The Pittsburgh filmmakers share stories from their wild weekend of filmmaking. (Blogging ended shortly after the filmmaking weekend.)
Silence is Golden
Last year, we at Dangerwood learned a very important lesson during the 48 Hour Film Festival: Many hands make light work, but man, it takes forever! This year, we went with a lighter crew and cast right off the bat, and I think things paid off. We shot twice as much footage in half the time, and managed to write and record a completely orignal 7 minute soundtrack to accompany our Silent Film. We at Dangerwood Pictures are very proud to be a part of the event, and want to wish all the teams a congratulations on doing the improbale, and a good luck for the coming week!
PS: A lovely 48 Hour fact... Making a movie in two days is nothing compared to finding 15 fake mustaches in two hours.
- Noah Brown, Director, Dangerwood Pictures
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Screening Venue Info Important
All,
I am more than impressed! 27 of 27! Some late, some with tech issues but everybody finished. I really respect your efforts and the films you made!
If you are going to do any type of PR Marketing of your films for audience choice awards at the screenings this is VERY IMPORTANT!!!!
NOTHING CAN BE PUT ONTO THE WALLS!!!!!
No tape, No push pins, no stick putty nothing!!!
This is a historic old building that is in the process of renovation and they will not allow anything to be put onto the walls.
We will have a variety of tables for promotional material, you can hand things out, you can bring an easel to hold a poster and promote your films. But nothing goes on the walls.
As a little teaser for the screenings, I know you are all looking forward to seeing your own work and enjoy the success of your efforts. In addition to that, be ready to laugh a little, cringe a little and even be scared a little. I have seen all of the films and I can tell you we have a collection of very good work for everybody to see.
Filmmakers, like all humans, are imperfect creatures with flaws. But the work that was done by all of you in a 48 hour challenge has many many more magic moments than imperfections. Nothing is perfect, but your individual and collectives efforts has made for a level of success that is truly spectacular.
See ya at the shows!!!!
J
OBTW ask me about the fire at the gas station as I was delivering the hard drives to Digital Video Development for compositing the various DVD's.
- Jay Kuntz, Co producer
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A collective effort..
Filming for Team Yinzer started Friday night and was complete by Saturday evening. Our first editor single-handedly stayed up until 7:30 AM Sunday to edit, edit, edit the footage into the first draft of a final version. Myself and the director awakened him at 11:00 AM Sunday to start the final edit only to find the footage would not load. Fortunately I own a Dell computer and am use to computer meltdowns so I suggested pasting the error code and google it for a solution. On our second try we found the solution and were off and running. Our director, who also did most of the detail editing, was making great progress so he left myself and the overnight editor to continue while he went downstairs to record the soundtrack with his guitar in the basement. The musical soundtrack is extremely important because we pulled the silent film category. I did some editing but was unfamiliar with the editing program so progress was slow. Our director (editor & soundtrack musician) came upstairs and continued editing and reached the crucial point of burning a file so the music track could be added on his laptop. I clocked the file burn at 20 minutes and 1.2 gigs. We first tried to export the file to the camera - it failed. We tried a second camera - it failed. The first avi file burned was of poor quality. A second Quicktime data file (of good quality) was burned unto an external hard drive. The external hard drive was connected to the laptop and successfully transfered. The time was now 6:50 and we had to leave so the director started to burn a disc on his Apple laptop as we drove to Cefalos. On the way we were talking to the overnight editor's wife about the information to be placed on the online 'wrap up' form then we heard 'I have a problem' coming from the back seat. We collectively winced and hoped for the best. Finally he burns a disc and as we pull into the parking lot the second disc is burned. Everyone is relieved but exhausted. When we got back we watched the video and yes, recognized its' shortcomings but overall we were satisfied with the final product. All-in-all it was a great experience and look forward to seeing everyone else's creative efforts.
- Richard Melvin, Actor, Team Yinzer
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Weekend
I have to admit, I came into this challenge with a certain amount of complete arrogance. I've been in video production for 10 years but from the industrial and event side.
This was our first narrative film.
3-7 minutes? How hard can this be? With proper blocking and an teleprompter- 3 hours of filming to get 5 takes per close up, a wider shot to remove lip sync issues for dubs? Someone running around with B-roll.
Okay. We need locations:
Houses- check.
Restaurant- check.
Sound Stage- check
Library- check
Office- check
Rick laughed at us that while all the other teams dispersed we were still eating at Cephalos until the band stopped playing. What did I know? First movie.
So what do I pick out of the hat?
Road Movie.
Hunh. Well slightly more difficult. As I throw all my locations away.
No teleprompter either.
Positive: No lights! My trunk became 80 lbs lighter.
What's that? 2 member of my talent are sick and can't make it?
What's that? My main talent can't drive stick and the vehicle we're using is a stick shift?
And it's what? 98 degrees outside? Perfect!
In the end, we started shooting at noon and wrapped at 7 with the chorus of
- Edwin Huang, Everything But the Name
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48 HFP mode
Top ten things that let you know you've participated in 48HFP
When you never prayed so much . . .
Nueroticism is a new daily feeling
You feel on Monday like you're missing something
When even 72 hours later, you have an overwhelming desire to get to Cefalo's by 730
Your wake up after 3 hours and think, 'oh darn, I slept in, have to get the footage...'
Your hear comedy and you immediately start thinking 5 minute plots
Your dreams consist of the film you shot
You suddenly say, "I have a spouse?"
You forget that your debit card doesn't have a bottomless limit
You're afraid to look at your online bank statement to see how much you spent on props, take out, and gas
- Jackie Johnston, Zoetifex
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Some kind of movie thing.
Started the weekend off by slaughtering a goat in ritualistic fashion. We spent the next few hours wrestling in a pool of goat blood before finally succumbing to the mind-altering drugs we had taken during the kick-off. Midway through Saturday we realized that we should probably start making something, so we conned some church-folk into marching down the street with blindfolds and filmed the resulting car crashes. We spliced this with shots of Scott Patrick eating cereal and the surveillance footage from McNeil's arson trail. About an hour before the deadline we realized that the camera we were using was actually rubber duck, so we dubbed farm animal noises over a copy of "The Core" and burned that to DVD. Unfortunately, Shawn was kidnapped by terrorists on his way to the Drop-Off so we turned in the film that Jordan had been making in the basement all weekend. Not sure what it's about, but I'm sure it will be great!
Can't wait to see it Jordan!
- Bill, lot25
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Year Two - Twice as Exciting
I will start my story on Sunday at around 6:30 AM when I woke up from a 3 hour nap and went for breakfast. Got back and right to work, but my VFX crew was no where to be found. Ok I thought. It was still early and we had plenty of time to get this thing done. 8:00, not VFX crew. Called and no answer. Ok, still have time. 9:00, no answer. Starting to get a little worried about time. 10:00, still no VFX crew. I’m getting real nervous now. About 10:15, called one more time. Finally got a hold of them and the little sleepy heads finally woke up and he said they would be in. I’m still pounding away. They finally come in about 10:45 or so. Due to the late arrival, I am forced to do some things that I wasn’t suppose to do. No worries we still had a little time left. When 5:00 PM rolled around and we still didn’t have the main VFX shot and I was still putting the finishing touches on the editing. We still needed the opening credits done, and ending section done and the credits. Now I’m getting nervous because I have no idea how long this movie will take to render out. I figured if I was done around 6:00 PM, we would be good. I couldn’t start rendering until around 6:25. I double checked the website on the specifications of the QuckTime Data file. It said that we couldn’t use any Proprietary codecs in the render. So I set to render the mover un-compressed. The first take took only 15 minutes so I thought we are good to go. Even if I have to fix something, we would still have time to render again. Checking the movie, I noticed that the music that I had under a voice over part was way too loud and you couldn’t hear what was being said. Damn, had to render another one. It’s now 6:50. We’re cutting it close, but I have some time. As a back-up, I was going to put the version we had on disc so at least if we ran into trouble, we could present the flawed version and still get in the running. As I was rendering out the fixed version, I went to dump the first cut to DVD-ROM and noticed that it was 9 Gigs in size. Wholly Cow! That won’t even fit on a Dual Layer disc. I stopped the other render and made the decision to render with an H264 compression. I figured it couldn’t be considered proprietary as it gets bundled with all QuickTime players. Just to play it safe, while I was re-starting the render at around 7:00, I would burn the first version to DVD. I would wait until we couldn’t wait any longer and ship the DVD version (which is acceptable, but not preferred). DVD version got done at about 7:15 PM (keep in mind that normal driving puts me at Cefalo’s in 15 minutes from Southpointe). I checked the DVD and it said it was an un-supported format (what?). The second render only had about 2 minutes left. Because of the compression, the render was taking much longer. The second version got done at about 7:19, and the file size went from over 9 Gig to like 68 Meg (huh?). Man that H264 is good. Checked the file, it was good. Due to the file size, it didn’t take that long to burn the DVD. Got out of the office at 7:21. At this point, I’m figuring that there is no way I can make it, but we can’t come this close and not try. I blew through every stop sign in Southpointe (and I hate when other people do that). I figured, it was Sunday so there shouldn’t be any cops around. Got up onto 79 and started doing about 80. Even passed a cop, but since there were others in front of me doing the same, he didn’t budge. Got to the Kirwan Heights exit about 7:25 (which is unbelievable if you know the driving distance). I needed to be at the Carnegie exit at that time to even have a chance. When you get off the Carnegie exit, there are several traffic lights and the speed limit is only 25 and you have to pass the boro building (where cops always are). I hit the Carnegie exit and I told my crew I didn't know if we were going to make it. I am at the last light and it turns red with someone in front of me who wants to turn right (as I do) and they won’t go. I give a beep and they just sit there. I start to yell at them and there are others in the car who just start laughing (which drives me crazier). Light turns green and they decide to go (very slowly to piss me off). 100 yards up the road is a stop sign (which is one block from Cefalo’s). Well, the smart asses in the car decide to just sit at the stop sign as if to say, “Oh, you are in a hurry are you. Well, how about we just sit here for a while.” I could have jumped out of my skin at that point. They finally go and it seems as though time is standing still somehow. I am asking God to show me some love. I was feeling as though he wasn’t on my side at that point in time. I finally got close enough to park (illegally) and booked my way inside. Got into Cefalo's and saw Rick. When that happened, I knew we were sunk. Rick said, “you better hurry up and get in there”. What? I ran faster and saw a few people and Jay standing there saying “do you have a movie”. “Yes” I answered. “Then grab an envelope. If you have an envelope you are in”. “You’ve got to be kidding me right?” I was the very last one to get an envelope (I think). Thanks for showing me the love Lord!
I find out afterwards that the first group didn’t get there until about 6:45 and there were a few that showed up just minutes before me. I have to tell you, the room didn’t look too full, so I am curious as to how many actually did finish. Anyway, I can calm down now, because WE MADE IT!!!!
When I got back to the office, I thought I would check the file better. In second observance, I noticed two minor things that won’t hurt our film, but it will make it better. For some reason, the layer that contained the opening score was turned off. So we have no music at the beginning. We used effects to depict flash-backs and one of our scenes was not colored as a flash back. I figured that most people will know what’s going on and know that it’s not present day. The other thing I noticed was that the compression (even though set to high) did not leave the movie crystal clear. Well, these will be fixed for our DVD and Website version. Be looking on YouTube and on zoetifex.com for our "re-cut" version after the screenings.
That's my tale. It's long, but it's a good story.
Thanks Rick and Jay for the opportunity to do this again. This time was much better and we got it in on time (just barely).
Michael M. Kadrie
zoetifex
Movie: Distant Early Warning
Genre: (Wild Card) Fable
- Michael M. Kadrie, zoetifex
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