Racing with the 48 Hour Film Project

 

My fifteenth year.

This year will mark the Crystal anniversary of my participation in the 48 Hour Film Project. One would have thought I’d given up by now. I thought about it, but 48HFP is as much of a yearly addiction for me as pickle juice, bourbon and HoHos during the National Novel Writing Month.

I remember in 2018, a young cameraman posted he was looking for a team. After a lengthy FB message exchange over days (Him interviewing me BTW), and a few days of him ghosting me, he declined because he wanted to work with a serious team.

Wait. What?

Ironically that ended up being the year we lost all our footage and the 48 became the 24 when we had to do a second movie.

Anyhow … that exchange and, of course, coming up on a milestone, got me to thinking.

I took the 48 HFP very seriously, however, I realized, no one really took me seriously. At least it seemed that way to me.

Why?

Because for 11 out of fourteen years, we made the audience laugh. Then again, it could have something to do with the one year we tried to be serious and dropped the ball. We were literally booed, heckled and publicly humiliated on social media.

It was so bad, I thought of never doing 48 again. Even though the producer shut that sh*t down, the damage was done.

If that sort of behavior is that of ‘serious’ teams, well, then, I’d rather not be serious. That behavior isn’t what 48 is about.

It’s about making the impossible possible, and yes, at the expense of cutting corners.

My mindset has always been I was going to make a movie that people remembered and do something new. I never go into competition with the mindset I’m entering to win. Maybe that’s why I never won ‘Best Film’. But I have won because I finished the project every year.

I was late one time and it wasn’t because the film wasn’t finished, it was because I sat on the Liberty Bridge for 35 minutes because The Dark Knight Production shut it down. For the record, I refused to see that movie … ever. Yeah, I’m still bitter.

So on this eve of my fifteenth, which is just days away, I thought I’d reflect on  a few things and asked myself if I had to name the three biggest mistakes I have made, what would they be? I came up with these.

 

ONE - SKELETON IDEAS

Technically, thinking of things isn’t really rule-breaking, I mean, how do you stop the creative mind from blasting out an occasional, “Dude, if we pull this, we should do …’ But one of the things I have seen teams come up with a skeleton idea. That is an idea that can be molded in any genre and the character/prop/line can be dropped in. (BTW most of us can spot this within 45 seconds of your film) Anyhow in 2008, I was brought on as a writer for a team. The team wanted one writer … cool. But that wasn’t the case. They needed someone to pen the script.

They had multitudes of meetings beforehand to discuss "ideas", things that could fit multiple genres. When the time came, they told me what to write. I brought up the ethic of it, and they didn’t see it as cheating as long as the ‘script wasn’t written’. We didn’t win anything that year. It made sense to me. Anyhow, the problem with these type of ideas is you get so pigeon holed into doing it, you force it to work a genre and the other required elements. Plus, seriously, it really takes away from the fun and in my opinion … is cheating.

ONE B – SKELETON LOCATION

The same can be said for locations. Find several and don’t set your sights on one really cool location. You end up forcing the story to fit the location. The audience sees and feels that.

TOO AMBITIOUS

We all have visions of grandeur when it comes to our films. But when you only have a limited time, that can be a hinder. Look at your idea … is it ambitious. Will it take too much post production time and side work. One year I spent sixteen hours in post in one position doing special effects. We won special effects, but still …. Erg.

 There are some genres you don’t have a choice, like Musical and Science Fiction. They require those extra steps. But keep it simple and remember this advice, it was the best advice I have ever gotten, ‘Write for the shoot and shoot for the edit’.

LEARN YOUR STUFF

It took me until 2012 to learn this, but as a team leader there should be no aspect of filming you don’t know or can’t do. Writing, filming, editing, music … you, as a leader should be able to do any role required. Even if you don’t do it well, you need to know it.  You never know. The editor may walk out, your sound may be crappy and you don’t’ have countless hours trying to find the best royalty free music selection, because let’s face it … music sets the tone.

I learned this the hard way when I discovered our 2011 editor was editing for another team as well and did theirs first. Yes, he finished ours on time but it was unnerving and came down to the last minute. Never again, I said. Even if I had to use Windows Movie Maker, I’d make sure our film was done hours before drop off.

LASTLY … COMEDY

I know I said three, but this isn’t a mistake I made. It’s what I have done right. I have heard way too many people say, ‘Try not to do comedy’. So let me say this, there is nothing wrong with making a funny film. Again, I repeated. NOTHING WRONG WITH FUNNY. Despite what people say.

Comedy doesn’t win? Bull. Over half the winning films I have seen were comedies and did you know a 48HFP comedy won an award at CANNES in 2016. Not to mention, on set and in post you continuously laugh. I have never had a freak out moment or anxiety when filming comedy.

The ability to make people laugh takes as much talent, if not more, as it does to make them cry or think. It’s a craft and an art and to hear the audience laugh is an amazing reward.

After all these years, I learned … that people remember the things that made them laugh.

If you are participating this year, be safe, good luck … and most of all … have fun. It’s not about winning it’s about making a film.