48 hour film project workflow...any tips?

M

midnightblues

Member
H, I'm planning on entering the 48 hour contest in Chicago. Currently, we're only a team of 3.

I want to make a decent production with attention to lighting and sound. I don't really care about winning. It's more about watching our flick on the big screen with the audience and seeing their reaction to it.

Anyways...I need recommendations. Is it possible to make a good production with just 3 people as the creative team and the crew? 2 of which have no hands on filmmaking experience at all, but are excellent writers.

So..that's my concern. I think I might end up doing all the heavy lifting/ all the work. What to do?

Sorry if this is in the wrong thread. But I can't figure anywhere else to put it.

Thanks
Mark

(I am lookin for volunteers btw. So any one want to volunteer...shoot me a pm.)
 
I did the New Zealand equivalent http://www.48hours.co.nz/2009/ just a few weeks ago with a team of two, and at least one other team had just one member. So can it be done? Yes. But it is hard.

I presume you additionally have actors? You and your team need to all meet with them beforehand, get to know the sort of people they are, as it will be much easier to scriptwrite secure in the knowledge that a proposed actor can actually play a certain type of role. (Few actors can play everything.) Depending on the actors, you might want to involve them in some way in brainstorming the writing - or equally not, it depends on what they and you are like. If the actors hate the script you write, that will not help the film in the slightest! Possibly you could also rope the actors into assisiting with production, e.g. send them out to find their own costumes as soon as the script is half sorted out.

Do as much allowed preparation as possible e.g. collecting music and sound effects and arranging possible locations and props and costumes, with a small team you won't have time to arrange this during the 48 Hrs.

Keep it simple, your team is too small for a wildly complicated production or post-production process. I'd suggest using just one or two locations (but have a choice avaialble, you won't know in advance which will be suitable). Don't let anyone get carried away during the writing process.

Can you other team members do anything useful in the post process, e.g. finding sound effects or creating stills or titles in Photoshop on other computers? If they're just sitting around watching you working on the master computer, that can be a frustrating bottleneck.

In general though, keep the workflow the same as for a larger team (I'm assuming a 7pm Friday to 7pm Sunday 48 Hrs here) - finish your script on Friday night, do a really quick script polish on Sat morning and get production underway, get all your shots finished on Saturday (for this reason night shots are generally a bad idea as you have to waste time waiting for night to fall), if you have time to assemble a rough cut on Sat evening that's great, then on Sunday do your final edit and any other post production stuff, try to avoid any reshoots, do a full render around lunchtime so you can all pick holes in it, aim to have a fully edited and finshed tape output at least 3 hrs before the deadline to allow for unforseen glitches.
 
I did one of these last year... I was the only person with any experience in shooting or post (though we recruited a second-unit camera operator from DVXUser at 5am Saturday morning for "travel" footage without actors). I had one other steady crew member, and 6 or 7 people with limited time commitments (e.g., floating in and out) as actors and additional crew. And, our lead actor had a minor stroke on Saturday morning around the time he was supposed to first show up for shooting, and had to be replaced. (Result is here: http://vimeo.com/4687153)

Lessons learned?

1) Be careful of trying to work with people who can only be there part of a day. Your schedule will be tight and likely change a lot as things progress, and having to work around other people's time schedules can be a huge problem that's better avoided. I'd rather have three people pledged to the full 48 hours than 20 people who can each contribute just a few hours. However, it's nice to have a roster of people prepared in advance that you can call for gopher duties, or for anything that might come up. Three people is possible... but 2 people is pretty limiting, and if one of you has to run out to find some prop or piece of equipment, or call around for locations or additional actors, you're really slowed down.

2) Have someone (or all of you collectivel) act as a script supervisor, and keep careful notes of what has been covered and what are the best takes as you go. Be very wary of improvisation or script modifications on the fly... small inconsistencies can cause huge headaches later. We couldn't use a lot of our favorite takes because of small inconsistencies.

3) Daylight is a major schedule-driver if you'll be outside. Both daylight and night are limited - I'd say, daylight more so, since it changes in character over the day.

4) Schedule-wise - write on Friday, shoot on Saturday and maybe early Sunday if you need more daylight, capture saturday night and as necessary Sunday, edit, render, compress, burn!

5) Build experience in advance! I think one thing I had in my favor that made this work is that I produce three-four DVDs a week. Most teams report problems and/or delays with the basics of postproduction - using the editor, copmpressing, authoring working DVDs, etc. Make sure in advance that you know all those processes so well, on the editing system you'll be using, that you won't lose any time that way. Make ten or so little test shorts just to run through the process. While you're doing that, see if some of your collaborators can learn the process as well. I was able to know, at all stages of post, pretty much exactly how much time it would take me to get from there to a burned disc, which is very useful for making decisions!

6) Similarly, learn the production equipment...

7) I'd say... if you're thinking of it... don't think of sync sound. Get all the dialog at decent quality right into the camera as you're shooting. You can record with a second system as well if you want to clean things up after the competition, but don't count on having time to deal with it during the competition.

8) Keep it fairly simple, and stylistically consistent. Our story was way too complex for 7 minutes, and our problems with actor scheduling led to some stylistic inconsistencies (the scene in the kitchen, which had to be shot in about 20 minutes due to actors schedules, and was the first we shot, had a very different acting and lighting style than the rest.

9) Revisiting 2)... designate someone as a writer, and the others as brainstormers, such that the writer can make firm decisions without worrying about hurting anyone's feelings. When there's a stage where everyone's "writing together", and then a stage (production) where everything has to be consistent, you want to make sure that they're clearly separated.
 
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ullanta nailed a lot of good points.

But theres a couple of things to watch for.

Refer to ullanta's point 9. This is almost exactly what we did. The big problem was, in our film fest anyway, each team was designated a genre based on a dice roll, but when we brainstormed the ideas flew off track and in the end whilst our story had romantic elements, it was not a romance, the genre we where designated. Not entirely our fault either, genre has some interpretation. But in these fests make sure you stick to the genre in its simplest form. We did ours in a democratic way and in the end the concept voted on by most was petty good, but a bit outside the realms of our genre. So what to do? At this point you cant start a dictatorship and say NO!.

The issue then was when our designated writer had done the first draft, it turned out as a non romance. Which in turn caused a bit if a **** fight. It was then hard to try and make it one. And I personally knew at 1am Saturday morning, our script was done and off genre or going to cut it very fine. And also refer to Ulanta's point 8, we had the same thing.

The first cut ended around 10 and a half minutes - we had 7.

We ended up with a 7 minute piece that looked pretty good, sound was good except for one line of dialogue (mistake) and with pretty decent acting. BUT was too hard for most to follow because the story was choppy at best and off genre.
 
Noel... what festival was that?

We went into the 48 Hour Film festival thinking that it was important to stick to the genre, and incorporate the required elements as seamlessly/naturally as possible, and to avoid "cliche".

However, when awards went around, it turned out to be the opposite. When a prop or line was thrown in in an obvious and silly way, the audience and judges seemed to like it. The range of things acceptable in a genre was very wide... in fact, it was pretty clear that some were scripts that were, let's say, "premeditated" for a different genre and slightly tweeked. I found this to be disappointing... kind of valuing the "inside joke" over the real artistry.

However, avoiding "cliche" - well, having seen many short films, I decided I wanted to avoid things that seem to be overcommon in shorts: killing, goofy comedy, and excessive voiceover. As I predicted, in the final film showings, almost focused on killing, many had sheer goofiness. But having written an overcomplicated story, I realized the benefit of these: they require no backstory. Since there's so little time for development and backstory, there's a great benefit to choosing a story so familiar that it needs none. I'm not saying one should take the easy route - I still wouldn't - but those who did in general were able to focus much more on cinematography and style, which regardless of how "story-oriented" a fest is, seems to be the dominant factor.

I still can't stand the films that are heavy on voiceover (or worse yet, all voiceover)...
 
I did the 48 hour last year in nashville, and will again this year. I had a team of 5 last year and that was cutting it hard. I'm hoping for 8-10 people this year. The larger the team, the better. Just get responsible mature people who don't need to sleep alot and aren't so prideful they won't do the labor jobs (even if it is going to get food for everyone).

At the same time, delegate all production as much as possible. Find people skilled in lighting and audio and let them handle it so you can focus on directing.

The script is a hard one because you don't want to spend too much time on it as you will likely go over the time limit or come up with too complex of a story line to get filmed. Make it concise.

My experience was a ton of fun. We won best genre and best use of character.
 
ullanta, here in NZ we too have found that judges seem to give little credit for sticking to genre and compulsory elements. From a few judges' comments, they do consider such things, but are far more interested in 'is it a good film?' - everything else is secondary.
 
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