Hey, here’s a surprise! For a limited time only, director Bill Coughlan is letting us show the full version…
Hey, here’s a surprise! For a limited time only, director Bill Coughlan is letting us show the full version…
“Controlled chaos” is Tohubohu Productions director Bill Coughlan’s term for what we’re about to do, and I can’t disagree.…
I love this description from the Houston Library for the interview I just did with them: “Robin Brande discusses writing,…
We made a movie.
With it being so easy to make and post anything on YouTube, it’s become even harder to explain why making a seven-minute film in forty-eight hours is such a challenge. But if you’re interested, here is a bit of a view into the movie-making process, which we follow in abbreviated format on these weekend ventures.
Even on the heels of our stressful weeks of family medical issues, we couldn’t give up the notion of having Tohubohu participate in the 48 Hour Film Project. And while we did have a more difficult time writing, filming, and editing our film, the results were worth it. But let’s start at the beginning...
When Bill went to the kick-off party and drew “horror” as our genre, he was thrilled by the challenge it presented. When he told me as I was driving back from Virginia Beach, I was less so. I knew it would be very hard to capture the tension of a decent horror movie in seven minutes, and had no ideas to even contribute. (As opposed to last year, when the concept presented itself in a dream.) I believe that my exact words were, “Good luck with that,” as I continued to make my way back home.
After Bill’s initial brainstorming session with our writer, Robin Brande, she took on the idea totally out of her comfort zone and developed it into a first-draft script. The two of them continued to work throughout the night to capture the right tone, feature our great actors, and incorporate the required elements. (Prop: a horn; Character: Marco or Muffin Gabbowitz, a person who works with animals; Line of dialogue: “Do you think you can do that again?”) I, um... went to bed.
Working until 6:00 a.m. on Saturday morning left us very little in the way of prep time for the day’s filming. Fortunately, Bill had visited the locations earlier, and did have a good idea of where the scenes would take place. Also having worked on the script so much, he knew what he wanted from the actors. What we were missing was a clear sense of the filming schedule, along with the rested brain capacity to develop one as the day went on. Or to remember little details, like bringing one’s daughter back from the set.
But this is where building a spectacular team comes in, because all of our cast and crew truly stepped up. It’s safe to say that we would not have a film if they had not all been so proactive, so competent, so passionate about their jobs. When I forgot to start the actors running lines, they did it themselves. When I didn’t have dinner plans set, our host came to me with the suggestion of a cookout, which he set up and arranged. When I prepared my weary mind to clear the set of our filming improvements, I was told that it was already done. When Bill realized that an actor wasn’t there, a crew member filled in. When Bill left our daughter at the other house, a kind actor brought her back to our staging ground.
I can’t possibly credit all of the work done to make this film look spectacular, but I’ll try to hit on a few things to give you a sense of the movie-making aspect. Lee and Meredith had scouted out locations in the quaint Del Ray part of Alexandria, and allowed us to use their house not only for filming but as our base of operations for the whole long, long day. They also arranged for us to use another house one that I fell in love with for other scenes. Both places gave the movie texture with the interesting look of the rooms. Check the odd angles in the kid’s room and the central 1890s fireplace in the group scene.
One important thing that makes a movie look like a movie and not a YouTube video is lighting. It’s
I haven’t been that engaged online lately, so I feel like I’m getting back up to speed anyway and then there’s all this stuff going on. So let’s knock this out in one post, shall we?
Over at Booklights, Jen is talking about Drop Everything and Read Day (known as D.E.A.R. Day) held every year on April 12th in honor of Beverly Cleary’s birthday. Makes me want to put off the housecleaning today and pick up a book. But to be fair, pretty much everything makes me want to put off the housecleaning and pick up a book.
Today also begins National Library Week, which is bittersweet this year. Personally, because I was laid off from my own library job that I loved and now miss. But more broadly, because all over the country libraries and their staff are on the budget chopping block. Very sad. Let’s hope our love of libraries can help government officials see their value.
Fortunately, we have great news coming in from Chasing Ray about the Operation TBD wish lists: “Neil Gaiman tweeted about them on Friday and sent our visitor number into the stratosphere which was very very cool. Over 300 books have been bought thus far which gets us close to the halfway point.” Keep those contributions coming!
Over at Fuse#8, THE NUMBER ONE CHILDREN’S NOVEL IS…
Celebration of National Poetry Month continues with the schedule posted at KidLitosphere Central. I know that I’ve seen some wonderful features so far, and I’m looking forward to more. If anyone is taking requests, I’d like a poem about allergies to commemorate this record-breaking pollen count. Thanks.
Hey, I’ve got a speaking gig on Wednesday for SCBWI Mid-Atlantic talking to published authors and illustrators about KidLit blogging. I’d love to see you there. Yes, you.
Save the Date for the 48 Hour Book Challenge on the weekend of June 46. More information will be coming, along with a sign-up page and prizes, so stay tuned. Oh, and if you have prizes you’d be willing to donate, let me know at MotherReader AT Gmail DOT com.
Speaking of all-weekend events leads me to announce Tohubohu’s next participation in the 48 Hour Film Project on the weekend of April 30th. We’ve engaged the fabulous Robin Brande as our writer (Hooray!), and have a great team of actors and crew ready to go. Now all we need is the genre, and required character, prop, and line of dialogue to make a seven-minute film. Easy, peasy.
We can also finally release access to our last movie, done as part of the International Shootout. For that competition we were given a simple theme: The End of the World. We went for a family drama, featuring our two daughters along with other fine actors. The visuals at the end always get to me, and well, the singing there is my younger daughter and me. Check out “Uncertainty Principle.” Hope you like it!
Well, mercifully, this post shouldn't be as long as the last couple. Sorry 'bout that. Suffice it to say, there's a lot that goes into these goofy little films we make. What I posted yesterday? That was about a fraction of the hijinx that happened on the set of good ol' FutureSand.
SUNDAY
When we last left our heroes...
I got up bright and early after a couple hours of sleep. (Total sleep for the weekend? 5 HOURS) I headed back to Jason's work to be with the core group, which includes Dirty, Brian, Jason and me. We needed to get the edit tip-top and have it all ready for Jason who was in charge of putting all the sound effects and what-not together.
The other cool thing? Michael Heagle, who did our visual effects stuff, was going to bring us the green screen stuff and also do some cool stuff with the 2 pound sandwich (forgot about that, didn't ya?). Also, my favorite thing...he was going to add some little muzzle flashes to the guns our heroes use. Dang. If I could figure out how to do that, I'd be making movies every weekend.
But, alas. I'm only useful for stories and for getting actors to do cool stuff on film.
So, by now we're all beat, slow-moving and Jason looks like he's fallen off a truck. He hasn't showered, slept much, and we're really starting to feel the crunch. He played some of the music Sherbetty (the band) recorded for us and I'm FLOORED.
I'll admit to not being too blown away when I left the night before. Again, I was cranky and I sort of thought the music was a little too sci-fi. But, I'll eat my words. These dudes made High School Drifter sing and they delivered the goods for FutureSand. The boys recorded a THEME SONG for the movie, complete with lyrics. We heard it and all of were instantly like:
"Man, I want this for my ring-tone."
"I need this on my iPod!"
I couldn't wait to see where it fit in. I already knew that we needed a piece of it for our opening sequence, which (if I may say so) worked PERFECTLY. The end credits begged to fit all the corny lyrics in as the insanely cool 'sandy' effects rolled by.
Dirty whipped up a quality edit and I was able to sit in with a list of things I hoped to tweak before we turned it in at 7:30pm. The clock was ticking. At 7:30, we all turned into pumpkins, our film isn't eligible to compete and it's sort of a bummer. Alas, it's never happened to us, but many a team has fallen in the last hour or two. Computers crash, footage is lost, you name it.
I found a couple continuity errors and some things that didn't work. Dirty did an insane job with the fight scene and we were pretty dang close to 'picture lock.' That means, we're not going to mess with it anymore and we give it to Jason, who will do his sound stuff to it. Add music, sound effects, clean up stuff like (ahem) the director yelling: "Oh, that's BAD-ASS!" over a take. You know. He was stressed, as some of his time was eaten away. The rest of us got to sit and wait.
Now you may be wondering: Thomas, what the heck are you doing there? Your part is over, right? You directed it and wrote the dumb thing. Now it's up to post-production to deliver the goods.
Nah. I like to be there for as much of it as I can. I need to still sort of direct, even if I'm not directly in charge of the different aspects of post-production. I gotta be the 2nd set of eyes and ears on something. We're all sort of part of this big ol' mess and it's up to all of us to make sure the thing makes sense, and most importantly, comes in at 7 minutes or less. Anything over that, and we're disqualified.
Well, to cut to the chase, Jason had us come in and watch the film with the music, sound effects and everything else added. To say I nearly watered the front of my pants is an understatement. I was laughing so hard I thought I was going to be hoarse. Now, I must warn you, I find it incredibly funny to see something as dumb as the script I wrote go through all these hoops and end up being a servicable movie. I'm laughing more at how well it all came together and how great some of the shots turned out. Plus, the fight scene? I just love that crap. It's campy, over-the-top and our actors were BRILLIANT. Also, hats off to Michael Anderson for putting together a rockin' fight with little time to prepare.
So...I know I'm setting myself up for people to go 'Eh...' but I was REALLY pleased with how it turned out. I think we all sort of thought we'd outdone ourselves from last year's High School Drifter. And remember kids, HSD won the audience favorite for our night. Essentially landing us in the top 13 of almost 90 films. Not bad for a group that doesn't do this ALL the time.
With my work done and a family who missed having me around, I left around 6:00pm. entrusting the delivery of the movie to Jason, Brian and Dirty. We high-fived, (not really) and talked about doing something again soon and I was off.
Cut to 7:32pm...
I get a phone call from Jason. He says we might be screwed. Apparently as they were burning the DVD, the picture got all screwy. We shot it in letterbox (because that's awesome) and it made our picture look squished and unwatchable. He said they were at the drop off point and made it there with 2 minutes to spare(!!!). On the way, Dirty had to burn a new DVD with some different settings and were playing it on the laptop while they were in line to turn it in.
I was literally ready to weep openly like a little baby. Jason gave me the play-by-play.
"Okay, it's loading up...okay, it's...it's..."
I closed my eyes tight like this was a bad dream.
"It's all good. It's working."
With that, they turned it in and we were set. We made the deadline and FutureSand was in the competition!!!
TUESDAY NIGHT 7:00pm
FutureSand was set to screen on the first night of the festival @ 7:00pm along with 12 other films. We all met up at the theater and I can't say I wasn't just a little nervous. Heck, my parents were actually coming out to see this thing. I looked at the voting sheet and was pleased to see we were the last film of the group. Not a bad place to be. You definitely don't want to be first, and last sort of lingers with people longer.
The movies began after a lot of er, crap, at the beginning. The guy who runs it sort of doesn't know when to just get on with it. He explained how all the movies had to have the same prop (sandwich), character (Kathleen or Kevin Schnaebel: Expert) and the same line of dialogue ("I hope they decide soon.") I looked around and was pretty well blown away by how many people were there. Probably 250, maybe 300 peeps.
There were some decent ones at the start, along with some that were, um, not so good. I know our early stuff wasn't spectacular and it's just great to see people getting out there and getting behind the camera. Still, I can't help but wonder what stories they would tell about what happened. I saw one film that had almost 8 people as the writer of the script. I'm not sure how that works. I think that's 7 people too many. I've never been good at writing with someone sitting in the shotgun seat, so hats off to people who can do it.
Anyway, we were all feeling pretty good about our chances when the movie right before ours, called 'Fragile' played. It was a Ghost Story and it had two little kids as the stars. And you know what? The kids were REALLY good. The story was dark and really pretty sad. It was about a little girl who finds a gun and she and her brother are grab-assing with it and the guns goes off. It's tricky because you think someone got killed, but both kids are still there.
SPOILER ALERT: The little girl got killed and we see her ghost.
Needless to say, we weren't thrilled having to follow that movie. Our is/was a buddy movie and sort of funny and a little over-the-top. It played and got a pretty favorable reaction, but there were parts (especially toward the end) where people didn't laugh. I don't want to blame the movie before ours, but it's pretty hard to laugh when you just watched a little girl eat a bullet.
We all voted, put in our ballots and hoped for the best.
Afterwards, in front of the theater and stood in the rain and talked about how the screening went. My parents got to meet most of the actors and they took some pictures (which I'm too lazy to post tonight). A big ol' group of us went to a bar called 'Busters' and tipped a few back. It was great. Everyone told us how much fun they had working on it, especially the actors. They all said they'd love to work on something with us again in the near future.
I gotta say, that's a huge deal to me. Maybe it's just me, but I want to make sure everyone is having fun when we're working on this kind of stuff. Seriously. No one is getting paid, the day is long, and we put them through some crazy antics. Heck, Kathy had to lay on the floor for like 3 hours. Still, she was a trooper, as were the rest of the gang and they all told me what a great experience it was. Not to say High School Drifter wasn't fun, but this group really gelled. Everyone got along and there were no attitudes or anything to deal with. The whole thing rocked. I decided then and there that I didn't care if we won or lost. The important thing was this: We made a pretty cool little film and that's all that mattered.
We'd find out our fate the next day.
Sadly...we were beaten by 'Fragile' for Audience Favorite by 19 votes. So, they're going on to the 'Best of' show and we have to wait until tomorrow to see if the judges (who pick seperately) liked ours enough to have us in the running.
Soo...it's not over until the morbidly obese female busts out a showtune.
(TO BE CONCLUDED...TOMORROW)
The conclusion??? I'll have FutureSand available for you to see both here at Tappity Tappity and on my dumb ol' Facebook page on Tuesday, one week after it screened at the Riverview Theater.
Thanks for reading and cross your fingers for us!!!
It's Saturday morning...who's gonna play with me??? 6 in the morning baby, I gotta long day ahead of me.
Greetings! (echo, echo...)
Well, it's hard to believe it's already been a year since High School Drifter was shot and shown at the Riverview Theater, but it's true! I've been busy this last month getting ready for this year's showdown and last night with about 4 minutes to spare, we got our newest film completed and turned in to compete with the 90+ other teams in Minneapolis/St. Paul.
This year, we ended up pulling Buddy Film out of the hat. I wasn't entirely pleased. We were hoping for horror, sci-fi, comedy...something other than a sort of pigeon-holed genre like Buddy Film.
Ugh.
When I think of Buddy Films, the movie Lethal Weapon immediately pops into my head. The idea that two guys hate each other in the beginning of the flick and end up pals by the end. Jason (my producer) and I figured out the buddy angle, but I sort of wanted to flip the idea on its end. So, when I post the film up here (hopefully later this week) you'll see what I did with it.
In the interest of keeping this somewhat brief, I'll give you some details about what was required to appear in our film and in every other Minneapolis/St. Paul 48 Hour Film.
Character: Kevin or Kathleen Schnabel - Expert
Prop: A sandwich.
Line of dialogue: "I hope they decide soon."
The title of our film is FutureSand. It's got kind of a sci-fi ring to it, but we wanted to utilize some of the resources we had access to. A fellow by the name of Michael Heagle was good enough to help us with costumes and some visual effects that brought our movie to a whole new level.
Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself...
Friday night was the night we pulled our genre out of the hat. On the 30 minute ride back to the Music Box Theater (which was our location for the shoot) Jason and I concocted an idea of what we could do with the 'buddy' thing. We tossed ideas back and forth and literally, by the time we turned the corner to our destination, it was pretty well planned out.
The hard part? Standing in front of crew and most of our cast and letting them know what our plan of attack was. Let me get this out: As a writer/director I'm really open to ideas, but it's really difficult to present an idea that is about 10 minutes old to a group. It's not their fault, but it's almost like being a stand-up comedian and getting on stage for the first time. You feel like you're bombing. Maybe it's the way I pitched it, I don't know. But both years, I've gone up there and explained what I wanted to do and I swear you could hear crickets and see a tumbleweed blow by. You sort of get this feeling that the actors are thinking: Great. What have I signed on to?
Then, I say: "Any questions or comments on that?"
It never fails, but the floor is opened up and the ideas from our cast n' crew start coming. Which is good. But I think the hard thing is, immediately after this meeting, I'm going to sit in front of my laptop and pound out a 7 page script within a couple hours. That's all the time I've got.
People throw out ideas (some good, some bad) and I listen to every one. Though it may not seem like it, I internalize that stuff and sort of sift it around in my headspace. One actor thought our 'buddies' didn't seem likable enough the way I described them, another was concerned that the women in the film would seem weak or whatever, someone else thought the sandwich could actually be a sand witch.
Like I said, I listened to them all but I know that we only have 48 hours and I've only got 2 hours to basically write out the blueprint of what we'll be doing. All the equipment and all the gear and everything is sort of hinging on the words I put on a page. It's one part unnerving and one part exhilarating.
Long story short? I was down in the basement of this theater, sitting in a dressing room by myself pounding out the words like it was the last thing I'd ever write. I kept watch of the page count.
FUN FACT: Did you know 1 page of a script = 1 minute of a movie?
When I got to page 3, I got worried. How was I going to get things moving to plan? I had characters to kill off, backstories to fill in, etc, etc... Friends, 7 minutes is not a lot of time to tell a story, especially formatted like a script. 7 pages of straight up prose? No problem. 7 pages of script? Challenging.
I ended up hammering out the script and I wasn't in love with it. I hadn't seen any of our actors (besides Riki Robinson, who played Perk in High School Drifter) act before. I didn't know what they'd bring to the role.
We had an ex-wrestler, 2 renaissance festival actors, and 2 theater/stage actresses, one of which used to date my brother back in the day. I thought FutureSand was going to be my Waterworld. As in...BOMB. Who knows, it still might be...
The script was done and it was time for unnerving part number 2. Having Jason (my friend and producer) read it. Last year, he read HSD with me right there. This time, I left the room and got a delicious soft drink. It's hard for any writer (I don't care who you are) to sit and watch someone read your work without having a chance to fine-tune it or anything. Again, time is money. The clock is always ticking...
As it turns out, Jason though the script was 'good.' Last year, it was 'alright.' Improvement? Maybe!
Another crazy thing about this year? We had an old photographer friend of mine come and shoot pictures of us during various stages of the project. Just about anywhere I went, Greg was cracking off shots. Thankfully, he took pictures of the other folks, too. But dang. The dude's camera was like a machine gun. It took some getting used to, no doubt.
We sent everyone else home, made copies of the script and planned out a rough shooting schedule (breaking down the script set-up by set-up). It was around 2am when I was on my way home to grab a few hours of sleep.
The problem? I got home at 2:30-ish and couldn't sleep. Call it nervous energy, anxiety or a sense of oh-my-god-what-have-I-got-myself-into but I didn't end up falling asleep until close to 4:00am. I needed to be up by 5:30am. I beat my alarm and was up at 5:20.
Apparently, I was ready to go.
(TO BE CONTINUED!)
SO excited!! Last night our 48 Hour Film Project entry for this year, “Please Forward,” won the Audience Award at the “Best of D.C.” screening. THANK YOU, D.C. AUDIENCE!!! For your further enjoyment, check out the shorts that won for Best Film and Best Directing. Congratulations to all! coughlan48hfp films to see: Best film: http://bit.ly/fTEMK Best [...]
Sweet! Just found out our entry in this year’s 48 Hour Film Project has made it into the finals for “Best of D.C.”! Hurray! Great job, Bill and Pam and the whole cast and crew who worked on the film! Technorati Tags: 48 Hour Film Project, Mother Reader, Movies, Screenwriting, Tohubohu Productions, Writing
Last night’s movie screening of “Please Forward” was fantastic! The audience loved the film, laughing in all the right places and giving us a ton of applause. We were last on the schedule, which was an honor in and of itself. A lot of the cast and crew come out with their friends and family to see the movie. I was late getting there because I was ironing on the transfers for the T-shirts, but it did mean that we could all wear them when the screening finished. Bill got the most comments on the film, especially since he addressed the audience with the other directors, but everyone who was wearing the T-shirt heard something great. We ran out of time to make flyers directing people to the Chain Mail International company website, where you can see a preview of the film and read the (fake) corporate history. I guess that venture will be just for us and our online friends.
Anyway, the important news today is that now the whole movie is up at Tohubohu Productions. Both of my kids have roles, and I’m in it as an employee at the company party. And as I’ve mentioned, the script was written by our own Robin Brande. Take the eight minutes to watch it and remember that we wrote, filmed, edited, and scored it in one weekend. Booyah!
Yay! I can finally show you the result of our speed-filmmaking project. Before you watch, let me remind you of the “required elements” we had to work into our 8-minute film: Genre: Holiday movie Character: Ivan Pagoda, coach Prop: ID card Line: “We’re hoping things will change.” We found out those required elements on [...]
It’s fair to say that the idea for Tohubohu’s newest short film, “Please Forward,” came to me in a dream. Seriously.
In the days before the 48 Hour Film Project, Bill and Robin were joking about chain emails and then thinking how that concept would be interesting for the movie. But with our genre and required elements still not established, they didn’t want to go too far down that road. (In the 48 Hour Film Project, you pick your genre out of a hat and there is a required prop, character, and line of dialogue.) However, that night as I slept, I took that germ of a concept, mixed it with The Office, and a parody video, “Flutter.” I dreamed about a mockumentary about a business that starts all of those obnoxious chain emails. When I told Bill in the morning, he laughed, but not knowing what we’d have to use when we wrote our film, it didn’t make sense to work up the idea. We thought about writing it up afterward for our own film.
When Bill went to the kick-off party and drew the Holiday Film genre, the idea came back into play: What if we went with the mockumentary, but it was at the office Christmas party? On Friday night, Bill and Robin started off the brainstorming and script writing while I finished up the Drama Club performance with my fourth grader (she did an amazing job as a chicken). Back at home, Robin wrote up the script as Bill and I made suggestions, selected our cast, and made phone calls. I ran around the house finding Christmas decorations.
Saturday morning, we headed into Bill’s old office building, where he had gotten permission to film. It was a great set-up for us, offering lots of spaces for scenes, but also lots of room to wait around. Even with only one day to film, there’s a lot of waiting around in the movies. Both of the girls came to be in the Research & Development scenes, and also to help with the clapper board, set decoration, and general gofer jobs. I took calls from our cast and crew, made sure everyone was where they needed to be, picked internal locations, decorated and took down sets, made sure everyone had plenty of food (very important), arranged the order of filming for scenes, walked the actors through some parts, and made sure all the paperwork was in order. Bill just directed the movie. Slacker.
We had a great time during the day, with a pretty relaxed feel considering our tight schedule. The actors gave us some stellar performances. Really top notch. I may be biased, but my favorite scene is with my fourth grader, where the marketing woman is trying to get some ideas about the next generation of chain email users, but is having trouble working with a kid. I also love my seventh grader as a typical teen, texting instead of thinking about the marketer’s questions. The party scene was the most fun to film, and I do make an appearance there as an employee.
We wrapped up at 10:00 p.m. and Bill went into the office to work with the preliminary edit. In the wee hours of the morning he came back to the house for a few hours of sleep, and then went back to edit the film and add sound effects, music, and credits. Oh, and play with sound levels and color correction and technical film kind of stuff. I saw a rough cut at 2:00 and loved it. I reminded him to temper his technical perfectionism and get the film turned in early no last-minute run for the doors at 7:00.
He did turn the film in with time to spare. Robin has seen it and really liked it. Bill went off with a couple of other directors for a mini-showing at someone’s house and got great feedback and lots of laughs. I can’t wait to show it to you... but it will have to wait until after our screening at the AFI Silver Theatre, Friday at 7:00 p.m.
The 48 Hour Film Project takes place in cities all over the country, so if you’re interested you might check the upcoming dates. While we work with a set team, many other groups need to fill positions in the weeks and days leading up to the competition. On the website, you can indicate your interest in joining a team, and there are often meet-and-greet events to help fill positions. It can be exhausting, but it’s a blast.
Hiya kids.
Just a real quick update. I've had a lot of folks ask if I'll be able to put High School Drifter (my new film) on YouTube.
The answer, unfortunately, is no.
And why, you might ask?
Well, it's sort of complicated. Since we used a couple of SAG actresses in our film, we aren't allowed ot post it on any site that gains a profit from the film. Since YouTube has all sorts of ads n' stuff slapped all over it...we can't post it there.
However...we CAN post it on a site if it serves as a resume of sorts. You know? Something that showcases my work as an author/filmmaker. So...once I look through the contracts we had to sign with the Screen Actors Guild, I'll have a better idea and will be sure to let you all know where to see my twisted little film.
Deal? Proper.
We're actually spending a bunch of time this coming week fixing up HSD for the next 3 contests were going to enter it into. Since we're not limited to keeping at 7 minutes anymore, we're going to add some of the stuff we had to trim out and make it cleaner, better, stronger.
Sort of like the 6 Million Dollar Man, except, you know...much cheaper.
Stay tuned!
P.S. Jonesin' for some 48 Hour Film Project stuff? I guess there's a site called www.48.tv where they show all kinds of films from the festival. Something tells me HSD will show up there sometime. When I know, you'll know!
So, it's Tuesday night here in ol' Woodbury, Minnesota and I'm about as excited as a fella can get. I'm completely rested up from our mad-dash weekend of filmmaking and I'm so pumped about how things turned out, I just can't stand it.
My new film (written and directed by yours truly) is called High School Drifter and it turned out 800x better than I ever expected. Seriously. We raised the bar on this one and I feel like I'm ready to do another one next month if I have to.
Hey there. You still hanging around this joint? Yeah? Well, let me slap your hand. Thanks for being there for me. Seriously, if you come to my house...Pancake Puffs. All you can eat.
And yes...I'm the worst. I've yet to show you the magic of P-Squared, but I assure you, once I make it through this coming weekend, all shall be revealed. And there's video and there's some pictures. I'm even sticking a chocolate chip Pancake Puff in my mouth with my bed hair fully intact. You won't want to miss it. I see that as a jacket flap picture.
Maybe.
Anyway, I'm writing to let you know I'm heading into the beginning of a very fun and very taxing weekend. That's right, doctor. This weekend is the Minneapolis/St. Paul weekend for the 48 Hour Film Project. It's going to be 23 kinds of awesome in an edible shell.
TKT, I'm too lazy to click the link. What's the low-down?
Oh, you. You always were one of those types. Well, here's the quick n' dirty version of it. We have exactly 48 hours to make a 7 minute film/video. We don't even get to work ahead of time. That's not COMPLETELY true. We get to find a location and get some actors lined up (check & check!) but we don't know if we're doing a drama, a comedy, a western, musical, etc... It's all decided tomorrow night at 7:00. We also find out three elements that must be included in our film and ALL the other films in the running. They'll be:
- A piece of dialogue (a couple years ago it was: 'Do you have a breath mint?'
- A prop (we had to have a balloon that said 'Congratulations' on it)
- A character (a few years prior it was D. Poe - Former Runway Model)
So, we've got a great cast, some crazy ideas that we'll try to bend around whatever genre we pick and then it's a race to the finish. My family (Travis & Laura) are heading south to stay with the in-laws for the weekend. My dog Nigel is going to the 'puppy hotel' and I get to be a real live movie director for the weekend.
Heck, I get to write the thing too!
Anyway, just wanted you all to know what's been consuming me for the past week. My friend Big J and I are going to take home 48 Hour Film Project gold!!!
(here's where you applaud and get out of your seat)
P.S. I saw the Kanye West/Rhianna/N.E.R.D./Lupe Fiasco concert last night. Cra-zy.
I’m still tired from the 48 Hour Film Project, and I wasn’t even that involved in yesterday’s work. The experience of making a film in two days is so intense that it takes a lot out of you. Our script by Barry Lyga was ambitious, and our filming went from our Saturday 8:30 a.m. call time until almost midnight. It was a very long day for the crew and our two lead actors, who really carried the
The top picture is the finished or nearly finished digital smudge painting.
The next four pictures are 4 photos I took to make the collage from
which I made the painting.
The last picture is a detail of my working. It takes me a long long time to these, which is why I cannot enter every challenge. Rarely can I do one in a week--it often takes a month to six weeks. I literally paint over every stroke (often more than once with many shades and hues). Some people are much faster at it. I am very slow. Click images to view larger.
(I also worked on the sky picture BEFORE you see it here. It was just grey.)
The lighthouse picture I used as a starter was from wall paper. (Top one for monthly challenge).
We're entertaining out-of-town guests, and I did this sketch of one (Harry Teichert). HAPPY NEW YEAR!
by mary, click image to view larger
Oops, accidentally posted these SMALL!
Just six hours until the madness begins…