Buqui Productions
Active member
These are my thoughts on lessons learned during the 48 Hour Film Project in the past couple years.
Pre-production: Have a small team of creative but flexible people work on a story. Lead the discussion with elements of the genre received. If it's an action movie try to ignite ideas by describing elements of effective action movies (quick, creative dialogue with smart action sequences.) Once you have developed your story, always keeping in mind your required elements. Send one or at most two people who are experienced screenwriters into a room alone to write the script. SEND EVERYONE ELSE TO BED. Sleep and energy are important. Once the screenwriting team is done, you, the director I assume, wake up early and plan out each scene and hammer out with the screenwriters final dialogue. Always have two people ahead of the shooting team scouting out locations and calling you with schedule updates. Keep in mind that morning and sundown are really nice exterior times.
Production: Get lots of coverage. It sucks to be in editing later and having to use the take where the actor thats speaking's back is to the camera. Plan on doing several rehearsal takes with your actors. Have dialogue feeders giving lines to help the memorization process. Set up shots while their practicing, and I recommend that you record because you don't know what might go wrong later. Have a boompole and an experienced audio person. Train this person before the project.....it helps. Actors can get tired of doing multiple takes especially in the heat. After the initial runs have your actors do their lines with the camera close up. Your dialogue feeders will feed the other actor's lines. This will reduce the amount of time all the actors spend on camera. As your final step of getting coverage, do the entire scene in a medium shot one way then a medium shot the other way. Having a light person that you train before you get on set is as important as your sound guy. Make sure you have a scrim and a reflector for shooting outdoors. Always have extra tapes, extra bulbs, extra crew on standby, extra tripod, extras, extra batteries, extra microphones, and extra caffeine. Try to be done by 10 P.M. the latest. Midnight has to be the absolute deadline.
Post-Production: Pace yourself. Set realistic goals for finishing certain scenes, but DO pull an all nighter because if you are done by midnight you didn't get interesting enough coverage or you rushed it. Leave time for sound editing and ADR, and of course, give a LOT of time for recording and placing music. If possible have a dedicated composer working on music themes the whole time, but leave 5 hours to record, produce, place, and mix music. Leave extra time for tech. problems...they will happen. Always have multiple copies of the movie on multiple media. Always double, nay, triple check the credits for spelling errors and attribution errors.
But above all...have fun! The 48 Hour Film Project is a test of wills and a test of your sense of humor. If it sucks...you made it in 48 Hours. If its good...brag about the fact you made it in 48 Hours.
Peace and hope it helps,
Michael
Pre-production: Have a small team of creative but flexible people work on a story. Lead the discussion with elements of the genre received. If it's an action movie try to ignite ideas by describing elements of effective action movies (quick, creative dialogue with smart action sequences.) Once you have developed your story, always keeping in mind your required elements. Send one or at most two people who are experienced screenwriters into a room alone to write the script. SEND EVERYONE ELSE TO BED. Sleep and energy are important. Once the screenwriting team is done, you, the director I assume, wake up early and plan out each scene and hammer out with the screenwriters final dialogue. Always have two people ahead of the shooting team scouting out locations and calling you with schedule updates. Keep in mind that morning and sundown are really nice exterior times.
Production: Get lots of coverage. It sucks to be in editing later and having to use the take where the actor thats speaking's back is to the camera. Plan on doing several rehearsal takes with your actors. Have dialogue feeders giving lines to help the memorization process. Set up shots while their practicing, and I recommend that you record because you don't know what might go wrong later. Have a boompole and an experienced audio person. Train this person before the project.....it helps. Actors can get tired of doing multiple takes especially in the heat. After the initial runs have your actors do their lines with the camera close up. Your dialogue feeders will feed the other actor's lines. This will reduce the amount of time all the actors spend on camera. As your final step of getting coverage, do the entire scene in a medium shot one way then a medium shot the other way. Having a light person that you train before you get on set is as important as your sound guy. Make sure you have a scrim and a reflector for shooting outdoors. Always have extra tapes, extra bulbs, extra crew on standby, extra tripod, extras, extra batteries, extra microphones, and extra caffeine. Try to be done by 10 P.M. the latest. Midnight has to be the absolute deadline.
Post-Production: Pace yourself. Set realistic goals for finishing certain scenes, but DO pull an all nighter because if you are done by midnight you didn't get interesting enough coverage or you rushed it. Leave time for sound editing and ADR, and of course, give a LOT of time for recording and placing music. If possible have a dedicated composer working on music themes the whole time, but leave 5 hours to record, produce, place, and mix music. Leave extra time for tech. problems...they will happen. Always have multiple copies of the movie on multiple media. Always double, nay, triple check the credits for spelling errors and attribution errors.
But above all...have fun! The 48 Hour Film Project is a test of wills and a test of your sense of humor. If it sucks...you made it in 48 Hours. If its good...brag about the fact you made it in 48 Hours.
Peace and hope it helps,
Michael
