archived-videos (48hfp Albuquerque) Between Friends

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stef

Here's my entry for this year's 48 hour film project entry.

Prop: A MAP
Dialog: "Oh, you're so smart"
Character: Rosalie or Roman Rodiguez, a tightwad

Genre: DRAMA

Right after the teams are given this information, they draw a random, different genre from a hat, and then have 48 hours to turn in a completed film. Obviously, there's a huge time crunch that can only be understood by people who have done this or similar competitions. It is then screened at a local theater, so you can see it on the big screen! (We didn't win any awards this year *sniff*)

I was initially the DoP, but ended up directing it, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9zD_cpjn5U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9zD_cpjn5U
 
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You guys had an 8min limit? Interesting. We've always had 7min down in San Diego.

Decent story. What took me out was the delivery of the line. It came off more as a question as opposed to a sarcastic statement. You guys did get one of the more difficult genre's I think so kudos for having to work with it.
 
7 min + 1 min for credits/titles.

I seem to remember before we added any titles/credits, we were a couple seconds under 7m.
 
Ah yes, that's right. I forgot that the credits don't count towards the actual story.

Hopefully you participate next year. I always have fun making these. My tip to you guys would be to have a story that is short and to the point. They're short stories for a reason. Trying to flesh out a feature length story in 7 min only makes it drag.
 
Yeah, this is the 3rd year I've done it and I was trying to convince our writers of exactly what you're saying. Subtlety is very difficult to harness in only 7 minutes, and I was begging them for a hammer to use on the audience :) It was a good story, but needed more time to flesh it out which we didn't have. I couldn't develop their relationship, the subtle realization of betrayal, and so on, so it felt too jumpy.

Thanks for the comments... it's hard to get feedback from other filmmakers sometimes, and it's appreciated.

Here's one where I was 'B' camera last year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmK6ATw1hm8
 
Good short! :)

But there was some over and underexposed shots. There were one or two moments when the music abruptly ended, and during some moments the acting seemed cheesy. It also dragged. Too long.

I think you did a great job with the time limit you had though. I want to try one of these at some point.
 
Nice work overall. The scene in the car where she asks about friendship felt redundant, and a little odd - the way the driver reacted almost made it feel like the previous scene never happened, i.e. "What kind of question is that?" seemed weird considering she'd asked something similar just before.

I'd agree with the other comments - try to simplify the story up front as much as possible to keep things working in the short time you have. We actually took that to somewhat of an extreme with my last 48 project a few weeks ago - we actually had less than a day to do it, so we did the whole thing in just one shot! I'll post that one soon, kicking off another one tomorrow night... our 5th (and likely final) one this year. Going to be another long weekend.
 
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stef said:
Yeah, this is the 3rd year I've done it and I was trying to convince our writers of exactly what you're saying. Subtlety is very difficult to harness in only 7 minutes, and I was begging them for a hammer to use on the audience :) It was a good story, but needed more time to flesh it out which we didn't have. I couldn't develop their relationship, the subtle realization of betrayal, and so on, so it felt too jumpy.

Thanks for the comments... it's hard to get feedback from other filmmakers sometimes, and it's appreciated.

Here's one where I was 'B' camera last year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmK6ATw1hm8
Click to expand...
Oh you're welcome.

CHECKMATE was pretty good. If I didn't know the genre I would have thought it was a drama as opposed to mockumentary. The reason for this is because of how it was shot. It was shot more like a movie as opposed to it being done from a 3rd persons POV. I kinda get it but not at the same time as your main character is a director so he likely wanted it shot in that manner. From a writing perspective, I would've cut out a lot of the middle dialogue and had him talk more about his goals as well as tell the audience that the guy had a crew to film the whole thing. But outside of that, it was overall good.
 
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