48 HFP: Do we make it?

Friday 7:00pm
I drive over to meet Nate and Steve for the first time, the two young guys who have entered the 48 Hour Film Project. Both are a bit reserved. Mid-twenties. Nate owns the camera, and is the video enthusiast. He shoots and edits small projects for fun on his personal computer. Steve, a warehouse supervisor at the Metrodome, is an aspiring scriptwriter.

I have been asked by my brother-in-law, Kyle, who is a friend of Nates, to help with the production. Kyle, a graduate of Berklee College of Music, is composing the original soundtrack for the film.

The rules: Write, shoot and edit a 4 - 7 minute short film in 48 hours. From 7pm Friday night until 7pm Sunday night. Sixty teams from Minneapolis have entered the competition. Each film must include the same three elements: A prop (this year's prop was a wallet), a line of dialogue ("Thanks for the help. Thanks alot."), and a character (DJ Mooney). At 7pm, each team draws the genre of story they must tell. Our team draws "Silent Film."

Friday 7:30pm
I read the scenario that Steve wrote prior to the competition. It is about 15-20 pages long, with around 30 or more characters. Extremely complex. I realize it is going to be a very long weekend. Nate informs me that we begin shooting in thirty minutes.

Friday 8:00pm
A group of about 10 of us meet in the basement of Hope Community Church to shoot a dream sequence. I don't understand how it fits into the story. Briefly, the story is about a briefcase that is said to contain $10,000. It has been lost and the main character, Pete, is searching for it. Through a series of mishaps and circumstances, he keeps missing the briefcase by a few mintues.

We shoot a rather frightening scene in a dirty and bare room; two "men" are tied up. A single light bulb swings from the ceiling. Pete runs through a hallway, sees the words "UNLUCKY" eerily written in shaving cream on a dank bathroom mirror, roughs up the two men and runs to...

Friday 10:30pm
We have finished shooting the first part of the dream sequence, which lasts about 45 seconds in the film. It has taken two-and-a half hours. Nate and Steve realize that they must radically cut their script in order to finish in time. Steve, Ben (another friend and the "shoot coordinator") and I sit down at the kitchen table in Nate's house, and begin rewriting the script. We cut and cut and cut. We are just getting to know each other, so we dance around not hurting each other's feelings. We argue. We compromise. In the other room, Kyle and three friends are comprising original music. It is excellent. Brass instruments. Classical guitars. Vocals. No 'canned' music. Nate is in another room, editing together the dream sequence.

Saturday 2:30am
I crawl into bed. We have cut ten characters from the script and simplified it immensely.

Saturday 5:00am
I get up and drive to the Metrodome. I feel suprisingly good for only a few hours of sleep. I meet Nate, Steve and Pete (the main character) in the parking lot, and we take an elevator into the basement of the Metrodome. We walk out of the tunnel that the Vikings run out of during the games, and we begin shooting the ending of the dream sequence in the MN Twins dugout. The dome is suprisingly active: Dozens of Somali women, wearing their traditional scarves, are cleaning up the litter in the miles of aisles of the Metrodome.

The four of us shoot for about an hour on the field, then race to the next location.

Saturday 7:00am
WCCO, the CBS affiliate's, studios. We shoot a "reporter" announcing the missing briefcase.

Saturday 8:00am
All the "actors" and "crew" begin to arrive at Steve's house. Steve's car breaks down as he goes to pickup the 78-year-old deaf woman (she is actually deaf) who is to play the deaf bag lady. We "phone"" her (text phone) and she drives up to our location. The house fills with about 30 people.

Saturday 9:00am
We shoot the first scene. I help to break each scene down, to compose the shots so that there will be minimal amounts of setups. Each setup takes valuable time, so I try to frame each shot to tell as much of the story as possible. I begin to have fun. It has been a long time since shooting a production has been fun.

Saturday 11:00am
It is essentially a huge block party. We have taken over a street in order to shoot a car crash scene in which a girl is hit by a car and the briefcase is stolen by a couple of thugs. Nate is shooting from a ladder, Steve is directing the "actors", and I am framing the shots. A few blocks away, Kyle is recording foley sounds: car tires squealing, a case falling into water, etc.

The shooting is going suprisingly well. The three of us work well together. All the cast and crew are enthusiastic and the energy level is high. We shoot a scene with the bag lady. She is walking down an alley and we instruct her not to look at us or the camera. When we yell "cut", we often forget that she cannot hear us, and we proceed to critique or compose the scene. The bag lady continues to walk down the street until one of us remembers her and chase her. She is a wonderful sport about it.

Saturday 3:30pm
We are shooting in a park with the bag lady (who is tiring), two fishermen, a little girl, two boys on bikes, the main character, his friend, and a DJ jamming on a boom box. It is a complex series of scenes, but everything goes off without any major problems. One "actor" keeps asking for his motivation(it's a silent film!); there is always one.

Saturday 5:00pm
We are shooting the final scenes! I am amazed at how smoothly the day has gone. There were no yelling matches. No one got hurt. We got all the shots on the shot list. I am tired, but have really enjoyed the day. And have made a few friends.

Saturday 6:00pm
We meet at Nate's house and begin digitizing the footage into the computer. My role on the film is finished. I head home and crash on the couch as Nate, Steve and Kyle spend the night editing and composing the soundtrack.

Sunday 1:00pm
I take Silvi over to Nate's house to view the rough cut. The guys got about five hours of sleep, which was actually pretty good. The final music was still being written and Nate was working on the credit sequence, but the film looked great. The scenes flowed well and I don't think the audience will get bored. It's campy and goofy and sincere.

Sunday 6:30pm
Nate and Kyle have been frantically trying to fix a technical problem! They must submit their film in thirty minutes (15 minute drive away). They try one last thing and it works. They hop in the car and race across town, arriving at the drop off point with only a few minutes to spare!

This coming Thursday night 9:30pm
The films will be screened at the Riverside theater on the big screen. I'll definitely be there.