The Side Effects of 48 Hour Film Project

-

This past weekend I took part in an annual event I've been dying to do for years now; the 48 Hour Film Project. The premise is pretty simple. You form a team of filmmakers, Friday you pull a genre out of a hat, the 48 Hour organizers give you a line of dialogue, a character, and a prop and you have the next  48 hours to make your film. 

I've been missing the boat on this deal for years and considering I have an unhealthy obsession with movies and multimedia... that's not cool.

So the team I was so kindly invited to join, Team Mystery Box, pulled "Superhero" for our genre. Friday was sputtering brainstorm session and late night blitzkrieg writing session, Saturday was nonstop filming, and Sunday was putting it altogether. My roles were brainstorming, writing, music composition and minor production work and editing. 



I don't want to spoil the film for you incase you see it but I will tell you it's called Side Effects and it's about a guy who buys an "Enhancement Kit" which gives him the brief experience of having superpowers. The group wanted to make it a comedy... but it didn't exactly turn out that way. 

In the end it turned out really cool. Thanks to my professional Director of Photography friend Aaron Riggs, cinematography is outstanding and the music I wrote, no gloating intended, compliments the film great. I have officially got the film making bug. Next July can't come soon enough... I think it's time to sit down and finish one of the many screenplays I've half-written. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Producing "USS IOWA"

-
Image
It's taken a few months, but I think I've processed the production, release, and reception of the "USS IOWA," a documentary I worked on for four years. I hesitate to call it "my documentary" because I didn't originate the project, and sharing the story of military history and people's personal stories is a bit of sacred task. Discussing the project in reverse, when the documentary was entirely edited and ready for release I felt a shock of concern; would U.S. Navy veterans accept it? the people who run the USS IOWA museum in San Pedro, California? Survivors of the April 19 explosions? Navy historians? Thankfully the answer to all of that was yes.  A packed house at the second screening of USS IOWA, in Johnston at Camp Dodge. In Waterloo, the very first audience for USS IOWA. While the project hit the airwaves on March 1, 2023, the first screening was actually February 18 in Waterloo in front of live audience with hundreds of veterans in attendance an
Read more

I can't go back to being a weatherman

-
Image
There she be, "Wheel of Death" in all her incredible, gory, gnarly, fun, and funny glory. There is nothing like finishing a film and just knowing it is a success. Not perfect, maybe it had perfection programmed into its GPS and along the route saw a tourist trap that was too good to pass by and soon decided that in its heart it needed to stay there for the night. That is what I'm talking about. Wheel of Death is a wonderfully wild tourist trap of horror comedy that actually delivers the good.  There are so many points I want to hit but I'll start with the thing everyone needs to know: Craig Bahnsen's performance as Doug the Demon is so impossibly good. I love so many things in this film and hit so many of my goals in it, but the top of the praise heap is definitely Craig. I didn't know in 2019 when we asked him to slap on some JNCOs that he had this in him, but I am so happy he hung around and delivered a performance that makes this film the most rewatchable
Read more

Filmmaking beats film viewing

-
Image
Making "Elf Off the Shelf," photo by Erin Hogan. I love the experience of watching something great. It could be film, TV, a stage play, live music, and many other arts, that feeling of you and a piece of art meeting for the first time is exquisite. There's only a couple things that top it, one is actually creating that art. When I discovered the real power of movies around 13 or 14, I think I watched my favorites on a loop. I would toss in new discoveries here and there, and it quickly grew into an obsession. But then a funny thing happened, I borrowed a camera from my media production classes in high school and one Sunday afternoon my friends and I made a mockumentary mixing skate culture and free-style walking called " Midwest Money Money. " This rush was similar to watching movies but the intensity was jacked to the nines and I carried that feeling for weeks. I showed our film to everyone and anyone who would sit in front of a screen with me. The filmmaking &
Read more