Every year, my home town of Baltimore is one of many cities to play host to the 48 Hour Film Project. The goal is simple. You have 48 hours to make a complete short film, somewhere between four and seven minutes in length. Everything has to be done within those forty eight hours, so it really pushes instincts into play, as well as how much good organization and forethought can make a difference.
I am in a comedy troupe, Drop Three. Up until now Drop Three has not participated, mainly because we didn't exist. This year, finding ourselves as existing, though not in any profoundly existential way (for now), we figured we'd give it a go. We've shot little scenes and skits as Drop Three, some of us did with another troupe we were involved in, and just here and there we've done stuff on our own. Those projects all had time for the scripts, post, etc., and were usually singular visions put to tape. They were also more skits than films, where this is a condense plotted narrative, and would be a deeply collaborative project.
Team leaders rolled in around 6pm at meeting location. We grabbed beers or soda, milled about, and checked out who we knew, said hi, and marveled at how small a town Baltimore can be, and that of course we'd know other teams that were involved. We also started naming who we'd contacted or thought about for helping out. Turns out there were more than a few people who had gotten multiple calls that week. Since we were going to try and do ours as a troupe exercise, we wanted to minimize non-troupe crew. We brought in one person who had done this before, had some equipment, and the associated knowledge.
Before the official start, each participating team was given a genre. We drew "spy". You can add elements of other genres as long as it doesn't betray what you drew. So we could add comedy or sci-fi to a spy film (and we did), but had we drawn "drama," we couldn't add comedy. We might be able to add spy elements to drama, or horror, but comedy would directly contradict it. As a comedy troupe, we were really only afraid of drawing "drama."
At 7pm Friday night everyone participating was given a character name (Scott or Scarlet Johnston), a prop we had to use (earrings) and a line of dialogue that had to be incorporated ("You know, I was just thinking the same thing"). These elements verify that the short was made that weekend instead of a random old short just submitted for the heck of it. We all got the elements at the same time, so when we scrambled off it was with exactly the same amount of time. No head starts, an even playing field.
We had until 7pm Sunday night to write, cast, shoot, edit, tweak, burn to disc, and turn in a finished short film between 4 and 7 minutes. Could it be done? Well, yes. It gets done all the time all over the globe, and has been for years, just in this competition alone. Outside of it, well, low budget and independent short and feature films have sometimes been shot entirely in a similar time frame. Post may not be factored, but still. The point is we were not worried.
The first thing we did was meet up at a diner. I collaborate well with coffee and pancakes. The coffee keeps my energy and creativity flowing. The pancakes are good to stuff in my mouth so I don't talk so much, listen as others brainstorm, and quietly think about the big picture as it forms. Generally I point with my fork at people who say something vital, then point to a napkin if they should write it down word for word. It's not polite to talk with your mouth full, even if it is a compliment.
Before we started thinking out the plot, we started discussing core elements. We knew we would need locations and props common to a spy film. Things like rope, needles, guns, that sort of thing. We also tried to think of good places in case we needed a chase or a shootout. We tried calling around and seeing what was actually accessible.
As we discussed some of these things, ideas for scenes and shots sort of percolated. We would hit some element here and there and make small notes. I know we had gone through a few ideas for the plot, just not what they were. Something started the story rolling, and it just careened forward. We were all suddenly tossing ideas and elements back like wildfire. We'd split into pairs, shout across the table, scribble things down furiously, all developing separate pieces. Some things we would reject, some we'd riff on and hone, and some were instant gold.
At the time I remember feeling like the ideas were great, but we were going to need to calm down and figure out which story to tell before we burnt ourselves out on the early brainstorming. Then somebody overheard one idea and looked at another. "That works with this if we just..." Then a thematic tie came up. Then we looked at putting this here, and saying that's why this happens, and it started all weaving together. It really was one complex (though pretty strange) story.
With a laptop at the ready, we started putting together the script. Some of us already have narrative writing experience, some are better with tag lines, zingers, and that sort of thing. As a comedy troupe that does quite a bit of improvisation on looser and less ideal concepts than something we've discussed for the last two hours, we knocked out the actual script faster than expected. The next batch of gravy fries hadn't yet arrived, we were done so fast. It felt like the pitch writing session of a sitcom, bits and pieces all bouncing around the room until it hit the page.
One debate that came up was the exposition of certain elements. What was the back-story, how did certain elements come to be and how did they work, and what do we need to make sure is clear? For most of it we decided the piece was too short to bog down with anything not directly tied to the brief character arcs we show. If we say this does that to achieve this result, we've covered the basics. Hopefully people will be following the story and not speculating on the science or whatnot. Also, as long as we understood the rules, and therefore didn't openly contradict ourselves, the blatant detail was just gratuitous. We also didn't want to ruin any gags by giving all of the hints away at the front end.
The script came in on the short side, figuring the "page per minute" average. We also knew we would be padding out the run time with atmospheric and establishing shots, a chase sequence, and some moments to let dialogue stew. As it turned out, we actually wound up coming in just shy of seven minutes, so it was good we didn't pad further. But that's more about the filming, which we'll cover next time.
 email this column to a friend
|
| Make Me Proud |
Every other Monday
Exploring everything you should consider as you make your
indie masterpiece.
|
| Patrick Storck |
Patrick hails from Baltimore, MD, where playing by the rules is frowned upon. Only average things come from playing it safe.
|
| Contact |
If you have a comment, question, or suggestion, you can send a message to Patrick Storck by clicking here.
|
|
