Seeking Advice. First Project. 48hr-film contest.

M

Mannie Bothans

This year I wanted to join a team in a 48hr film project competition, and the nearest one to me is about two hours from where I live. It starts July 25th.

Then my 12 year old son found out about it and wanted to have a major role in doing one. I have always wanted to produce something that I could show to this community. I have learned so much from every here. Everyone has been so helpful to me. I feel like I take and take… and never give anything back. I want to finally learn by doing and share what I’ve learned. So I decided to take the plunge and form my own team so that my son and I can do this as a father and son experience.

So now, I need to assemble a cast and crew from scratch, with no experience doing any filmmaking before. Yes, I’m crazy. (My wife has already established that.) I need to find an editor, some sound people, a music person, actors, everything.

So-- what advice would you have for such a total newb?

Any advice at all, about any step in the pre-prod-or-post process of a 48 hr competition is welcome.

I know that if I can’t find an experienced editor (or even if I can) I need to get more experience with workflow to know exactly how long a finished short will take to cut render and burn, etc. Did I mention I need to find a good editor?

I know I want to try to do everything in one location that can double for many locations-- the only problem is, the competition dropoff (and all of the actors I have thus-far recruited) are in Louisville-- and I live 1.5 hours away in Lexington. I don’t know as many location options in Louisville as I do in Lexington.

I know I need to do as much planning and prepwork as I can (as much as rules allow) in advance. Locations, cast crew, equipment, etc.

I know I need to plan backup contingency plans and need to be flexible.

I’d like to start editing while still in production. Did I mention I need to find a good editor?

My wife is going to handle all of the food for us because I know I need to feed my cast and crew regularly. Lots of coffee, soft drinks, water, protein, nutrients, etc. She is also going to handle all of the requisite paperwork.

I need to find someone with a good audio track-record. Right now I don’t even have anyone who can swing boom on set, let alone mix music, dialogue, foley/sfx, etc. I don’t have a composer, or even anyone who could DAW-up enough with royalty-free stuff. Did I mention I need to find a great audio team?

I’d like to plan well enough that different people can be doing different things at different times, so that some members of the team could get a few winks-o-nappage.

Multi-camera is only an option for me if I plan for it way in advance and find and order one just like the one I have early on.

I know some people cheat and write scripts for each genre ahead of time and tweak them with the prop/dialogue a go-time, but I am really proud of the integrity of my son. He said, “Where’s the fun in that. I want to see what we can do within the rules. We’re beginners, it’s gonna look like crap anyway. Let’s just have fun and do our best.” He’s 12 years old. Did I mention I was proud of my son?

The possible genres are:
Comedy
Dark Comedy
Drama
Film Noir
Film de Femme
Fish Out of Water
Horror
Musical or Western
Road Movie
Romance
Sci Fi
Silent Film
Thriller/Suspense
Time Travel

My 12 year-old will help write the script/improv scenario outlines and maybe appear on camera. My wife would function as 2ndAD, craft service, and HMA. I have a 6-year-old daughter that would be happy if we called her production assistant. :) I have two actors that have some experience in the industry.

I also own a small smattering of gear, including a Canon XF100 home video camera, which is all I have really ever had experience with. I have a cheap Proaim Mattebox (but no filters to use in it yet), a cheap little opteka steadyvid thing for going handheld. I have a Manfrotto 504 head on 546BK sticks. I will probably want to rent a little slider and some grip gear, but I haven’t even looked into the possibility of renting stuff around here. I don’t have a dolly, jib, or anything else really. I need to buy lots more batteries for everything, as well as more CF cards, etc.

For audio I own a Sennheiser MKH 50 hypercardiod mic for indoor shooting, a Rode NTG-3 mic for outdoors, a 9′ boompole, a rode blimp with wombat cover, and a pair of Sony MDR-7506 headphones. The XF100 also has XLRs, but I also have a SoundDevices 702.

For extremely soft light I own a "CowboyStudio 4500 Watt Photo Studio Lighting Softbox Video Light Kit" (each of the 15 bulbs is an 85W CFL... 300W equiv w/ 5,600 lumens... and each of the three fixtures support five bulbs each-- so each softbox is a 1500W-equivalent source with really short throw)... and I also acquired an OLD, used, tungsten set that included a junior2k, a baby650, and a mini200-- all mole-richardson fresnels, but I need to switch out the plugs before I can even test them to see if they work, and I don't yet have ANY c-stands, sandbags, flags, scrims, cutters, silks, barn doors, or other support grip gear that we'd need to make good use of or even mount the heavy fresnels.

For editing my home computer is getting more dated every second. It is a Windows 7 64bit, with Intel i7 4.5GHz processor, and 32 Gig DDR3, a 240GB SSD, four Western Digital 1TB 7200rpm SATAs in 2 Raid 0 config, GeForce GTX 670 card, w/a Blackmagic Design Intensity Shuttle Capture Device, a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 for audio, one Asus PA248Q 24" video monitor, with two KRK RP8 speakers, and the Adobe Premiere Pro CS6, with After Effects, Audition, SpeedGrade, etc., and RedGiant TrapCode Suite.

I have been collecting all of this equipment every birthday, Christmas, etc for I-don’t-know-how-long… but I don't really know how to use any of it well. This crash course will be a recipe for disaster, but we are gonna give it a go.

I will probably end up functioning as UPM, Line Producer, Director, and if we couldn't find anyone else to do it, also the DP, Camera Operator, Focus Puller, etc.

I’d like to find more actors who are flexible and willing to be a part of the organic process from the
beginning, and jump in and play grip/sparky etc. I also need to secure some wicked cool location (or different location possibilities for different genres) that would streamlines the set design-- just didn't look like someone's house, or a busy public park. I also need an editor. Did I mention I need to find someone who knows how to swing a boom and someone to monitor the sound, mix, design, edit, compose, etc.?

Is anyone available to help our team from near or afar? Did I mention I needed an editor? Have any of you ever used Sony Ci?

So, back to my original question… I am so totally new at this, so do you have any advice for a total newb (including, but not limited to, advice like “Forget it, join someone else’s team, you don’t know jack so how can you expect to jump in and call the shots if you don’t know what you’re doing.”)
 
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Dude, sit back and breathe....

These competitions are really physically demanding on some people. If I remember right, you're also not allowed to pay anyone on cast or crew, so you're limited to who you know (or can find).

My suggestions would be to join another team for the first one and build up some contacts.

If you decide to go it yourself, work out your locations in advance. Give yourself options. Write to those locations depending on your story. Spend more time on your story than you think is necessary. I'd personally prefer to rush the other elements than have a weak story.

The work times usually goes like this:
Friday night get your assignment. Brainstorm. The writer(s) go away and write the story.
Saturday: Shoot
Saturday night to Sunday morning: Edit
Sunday: Complete edit, composing, hand over to post audio.

Your project isn't going to go to plan. Have an AD with an anticipated schedule to what you'll need, with the shot list in priority. That way, you know when you have to move on to the next scene. Get as much coverage as you can within the allocated time. Shorter is better than longer. It's better to have a great small length short than a longer ordinary one.

It's not going to be perfect. You're going to make mistakes. You're going to have fun. Once you go in with that attitude, you'll enjoy yourself more.

Anything you can do to save time will give you more time to spend on your film. Sound Design is an area I found people often lacked. Having someone on board for a good sound design (with a great story) can mean the difference between a great film and one that feels like everyone else in the pack.

Don't try to do everything yourself. Bring on enough people to do it all.

Bring able to communicate is a must. Very little will be planned well, so communication is key.

Multiple talented people help. Those who are willing to do more than one role. Eg. Actors who will also PA, cook etc. Gaffer/Boom op etc.

Don't forget driving times. When you only have 48 hours, locations and delivery driving times can make a difference.

Any questions?

Good luck and have fun!
 
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Thanks. I have already blown you first piece of advice. It is not too late to disband the team I have formed (I'd just lose the entry fee) -- but I thought that it might be better to have control of things if my young son was involved. I'll think more about this point. Because in addition to (and because of) my inexperience, it will likely be difficult to recruit quality helpers.

That timeline was exactly what I was thinking about!

Every other bit of advice I am going to take to heart immediately. I can really see the value in putting more time into a solid story.

Regarding drive times-- you are so right. I can't be havin people drive to multiple locations for this. i need an interesting location that can have enough diversity to not put the audience asleep.

I have unrestricted access to a medical office, a dental office, and a church in my hometown, but I think I am definitely going to have to have our base in the city where it must be turned in. If I have to drive 1.5 hours from my editing computer to the drop location, that is totally wasted time.

Despite the location challenges, one of the most crucial things that I will have even more difficulty doing in pre-pro is recruiting a team. Has anyone ever collaborated long-distance? Like uploading footage and having a sound person work remotely and a composer work far away? This kinda a) complicates things with additional things that can go wrong when you haven't worked with someone before, and b) flies in the face about communicating well with everyone, because that can be harder to do when far, far away.
 
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Has anyone ever collaborated long-distance?
Click to expand...

Yep, you have to pay attention to upload speeds. They're horrible in my country, so long distance on time sensitive projects are very difficult, though it depends on what jobs you're talking about. Writers... no sweat, same with a production manager... Cinematographer/camera/soundie/editor/caterer.... a different matter all together. Composers/post sound... it all a matter of opinion. I'd avoid it if you can for this one as you'll need to have paperwork signed and not everyone has a scanner.

Getting the people is all about networking before the project.

Another suggestion to add in. Have a backup plan. Our director decided an hour or two before the start time to drop out.

While we didn't win any awards (though, came top 5 in audience choice awards) it was good experience and some of the contacts gained have been valuable over time. We did submit it to new local film festival and they had to scrape my jaw off the ground when they announced our film as the winner. So something came from that I suppose.
 
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What a drag.

Fortunately, I always write in my word processing program. I'm a
terrible speller and severely dyslexic so I need to go over my writing
many, many times. So here it is:

The 48 Hour Project is great fun. And quite impossible.

I've done three; general crew (I owned lighting equipment), DP (at
the last minute because I owned a camera) and director (because I
wanted to “do it right”).

The first two were disasters. But great fun. An inexperienced crew, a
cast who thought they could work all night (but got dead tired after
1AM), directors who were more interested in proving something than
in making a movie in 48 hours. But I still had fun. It took the third try
to come up with something decent; and I had the hubris to insist that
no matter what genre we got we were going to make a musical. We
got “Holiday Film” so we made a Halloween Musical.

The writing is the most difficult part. Well, the location is, really – then
writing to the location. Here in Los Angeles crew is easy to find. The
rental houses are overwhelmed that weekend – people order equipment
6 months in advance.

But I think you have the right attitude. Go out and have fun. Know
your final product will be a disaster but have fun making it.

The schedule is the killer. I suggest you write the script in the first six
hours. Three people at most. While it seems good to use your actors as
crew they need time to learn lines as the crew sets up. And then as the
crew moves equipment. Have at least three dedicated crew people in
addition to two audio people – so a total of five. On set audio is crucial.
Post audio and music is less important as getting excellent dialogue tracks –
your AD and your audio people are the MOST important on a shoot like this.

You're call should be 4AM with the understanding that everyone will work
until midnight/2AM. Writer your script accordingly – night scenes and day
scenes. Have your editor on set with you. I don't know if you mentioned it,
but you need an editor. Preferably two of them – it a hell of a job.

Then cut and do your audio all the next day – starting the moment you
finish shooting. In the best scenario your editor will have almost everything
logged during the shoot so you can jump right in. Allow time to compress
to media and (in your case) delivery.

I think you can shoot in your town if you schedule properly. The actors and
crew should be finished by Sunday 1/2AM. Give your wife the day to sleep so
she can drive the finished movie 1.5 hours.

Crew will be EVERYTHING. You have two months. Get going!
 
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You have lots of great advice above.

Youtube is your friend when it comes to DSLR film making tutorials etc. And check out examples of great shorts - we feature some excellent ones on the Home page of our site (click the link in my signature).

Remember that the story is hugely important. The audience will overlook some film making mistakes if the story is excellent.

This was originally made for a 48hr film project:

Shot
http://vimeo.com/73111999
 
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I've done a few of these, and learned a few things over the years...

First off - don't over-complicate it for your first time, and don't take it too seriously. Treat this as a learning experience, and know there's always next year when you'll be better prepared based on what you learn this year. Everyone works differently, so knowing your own workflow, needs, strengths and weaknesses will get you farther than any specific advice I can give.

That said, here's how my team does these. Friday night we set a hard deadline for deciding on our concept and story, generally midnight. That gives you only 4-5 hours to nail things down. The problem here generally isn't not having an idea, it's having too many - so having a hard deadline forces you to make decisions quickly and keep moving forward. There's nothing worse for overall morale and productivity than dragging things into the wee hours of the morning before you even start shooting.

In my experience what will happen when you're brainstorming is you'll come up with a lot of 'concepts' but not a lot of 'stories' - and what you need is a story. Beginning, middle, and end - take the audience somewhere. Focus on selecting your concept quickly and then spend the rest of the time turning it into a solid story.

A simple story executed well will turn out a lot better than a complex story that you can barely scrape together in the time available. The time limit is 4-7 minutes - aim to be closer to a 4 minute running time than 7 minutes. I've watched hundreds of 48 hour films and I rarely see one where I feel it would have been significantly better if it was longer - but there have been many where I wish the filmmakers would have cut it down.

Once we have our story we generally don't write a full script - mostly just a treatment with some of the key dialogue included. This puts more of a burden on your actors, because they'll be having to improvise a bit during the shoot, but it also gives you flexibility to continue shaping the story as you shoot. You should also try to decide which parts are absolutely essential, and which parts you could live without if necessary, because you may end up running out of time to shoot and you want to be sure you have enough to at least make a reasonably complete film with whatever you get. Plan your shoot schedule to get the essential stuff done as early in the day as possible.

We actually go to sleep Friday night and usually start back up on Saturday at 8-9 in the morning. Some teams prefer to try and work through the night, but I don't think it's a good idea unless you've got dedicated writers, etc who won't be working as part of the crew the next day. The shoot will be long and tiring, and if everyone is starting the day having already pulled an all-nighter the shoot probably won't go smoothly.

I personally don't like to have writers working through the night independent of the rest of the team. We've tried this a couple times, and inevitably we wake up to a script that is great but beyond the resources and time we have available. A writer's only constraint is their imagination, so given the extreme production constraints of a 48 hour project it needs to be tempered by the crew's knowledge of what they can pull off in the time allotted.

Don't rush the shoot, but have someone who's job is to watch the time and make sure you're making steady progress through the material - this is really the AD's job, and it's probably the most important job on set. It's easy to get sidetracked having fun during the shoot, so having someone who's always re-focusing the crew on moving forward is great.

Minimize location changes. You want to have some variety, but you'll waste a lot of time moving from place to place. Try to find a single location that can give you 3-4 different 'looks' and work within that as much as possible.

Start editing as soon as possible. It's great if you can start during the shoot, but if you don't have the workflow for this down it can slow things down a lot. To do it that way you'll need a dedicated editor on site with a laptop, and a routine for cycling cards from the cameras after each scene is wrapped. If you don't have a dedicated editor I'd say wait until the shoot is done to start your post work.

Sunday night is generally where I'm more likely to pull an all-nighter. Work the edit and post in a layered approach. Throw together a very rough cut of the entire film, then run back through it in multiple passes, refining it a little more each time. This way you'll always end up with a complete story, even if you run out of time to get it as tight and polished as you'd like.

Working remotely is hard - we've done quite a bit of this on the last few projects we've done and even with two very experienced post people with reliable high-speed connections (20+mbps upstream) on each end it complicates things. Project files don't always open up correctly between the two systems, things get out of sync, etc. To do it effectively you really have to have duplicate copies of the source media on each end, and then all you transmit between you is project files which are small and can be rendered on either end. It takes too long to make these duplicates by uploading the media. We make the copies during the shoot - as soon as each scene is offloaded from the cards it's copied to a second drive and that drive goes home with the other person. If you're trying to work with someone who's truly remote, and can't physically get a copy of the media during the shoot, it's going to be very hard to get things done on time.

Aim to be close to done with the edit by early to mid-afternoon on Sunday. You can always continue refining things if you have more time. Leave time to render - every time teams show up at the drop-off, laptop in hand, watching that render bar chug along as the minutes slip away. It sucks to miss the deadline, but it really sucks to miss it by just a couple minutes. In addition to render time you need to leave time to copy your rendered movie to the media for drop off - these days it's usually it a thumb drive, and they aren't particularly fast. Just copying the file can take 10-15 minutes.

If you reach a point where your film is complete/viewable but not quite as good as you'd like it a couple of hours before drop off, it can be a good idea to render out a copy and copy it to a thumb drive. Then continue working - if something goes wrong after that point at least you've got something to turn in.

We've done quite a few for a city that was about an hour away - you just need to shift everything a little earlier, and make sure you leave extra time for the drive in case there's traffic. You may want to edit on a laptop, or at least keep the project on a portable drive so that you can take a laptop with you in the car to render/copy etc during the drive. Someone also needs to go there for the kick-off, so usually we have them call the team from the kickoff to give everyone the required elements so that the rest of the team can start working on ideas while that person drives back.

Finally, have fun with it. There's going to be points where you just want to give up. I usually wake up Saturday morning second-guessing the story we've come up with, wondering why the hell I'm putting myself through this again, wishing I could just roll over and go back to sleep. Then I drag myself out of bed and get moving - and all that gets lost in the rush of production. I often get to the end of the Saturday and I'm exhausted, all I want to do is get to sleep, and I'm not really sure we've even got what we need for a decent film. But I sit down anyway and I start editing and things always seem to come together anyway. And then, as the end approaches, I can't really tell how well it's all working - I've watched it too many times, and all I see is the flaws and the things I wished we'd done differently or had more time to do. But I wrap things up anyway, and we send it off, and a week or so later I get to see it with an audience and 9 times out of 10 they react better than I could have hoped for.

So whatever happens, just keep going, and finish the film. I always say if it looks like you're going down, you might as well go down in flames.
 
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I personally don't like to have writers working through the night independent of the rest of the team. We've tried this a couple times, and inevitably we wake up to a script that is great but beyond the resources and time we have available. A writer's only constraint is their imagination, so given the extreme production constraints of a 48 hour project it needs to be tempered by the crew's knowledge of what they can pull off in the time allotted.
Click to expand...

Very, very valid point. Never had a writer go off the reservation like that where the team in the morning goes, "umm.... great stuff, but we cannot do this"

I guess that's why you have a collection of resources already organized (venues, actors etc) so the writers know the limitations. Perhaps have a First AD/Producer/Production Manager (logistics) kind of person with the writers steering them within the realities of the shoot.

Don, link that fighting video with the dog you did for the 48hr one...
 
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ItDonnedOnMe said:
I personally don't like to have writers working through the night independent of the rest of the team. We've tried this a couple times, and inevitably we wake up to a script that is great but beyond the resources and time we have available. A writer's only constraint is their imagination, so given the extreme production constraints of a 48 hour project it needs to be tempered by the crew's knowledge of what they can pull off in the time allotted.
Click to expand...

Of course the solution to that happening is telling the writers the
constraint this specific project faces. Allow the writers to be part of
the team. In my case I took the writers to the location the week
before and we took lots of pictures. I told them the story needed
to take place in both day and night. I gave them pictures of the cast.

On the Friday the writers and cast and some of the crew (AD, DP)
and I were together waiting for the producer to call us with the genre
and criteria. We threw ideas around and then we all took off leaving
the writers to do their thing without so many voices in the mix. We
got a great script at about 4AM so as the actors arrived in set they had
a few hours to go over it. A great challenge for them. And they (and
the crew) had had a solid 6 hours of sleep before out 16 hour day.

Since you've tried it a couple of times without success I wonder if the
writers went off the rails because they weren't prepped. Or maybe you
just brought on writers who didn't care to meet the challenge. I have
found that writers love the challenge as much as the cast and crew.
 
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I've been involved in maybe 9 48 Hour Film Projects over the years with regular team of friends.

For your first project here are things that you want to make sure of.

1. Get your film in on time. We missed the deadline by minutes twice over the years and it is the most depressing thing to everybody involved. Your film will still screen, but it feels weird when you are listed under: Late Films. Have a plan, from the very start of how you are going to get the film to the finish line. Who is driving? Always have two people, so that if you are really running behind you can have somebody jump out to run in and get the film submitted and you don't have to worry about parking.

2. Say to yourself, "I am going to make a really good five minute film." Not eight minutes. That way if your five minute film is running two minutes long, big deal. Nothing is as frustrating as trying to cut a ten minute film down to eight minutes with a clock ticking over your head.

3. Have the actors call time be at least an hour after the crew call time at the first location. Do not say, "OK everybody be at this address at 5AM." And then have 5 actors who arent' getting paid sitting around for two hours while you get your bearings and set ups planned with your DP, etc. Personally, we have told the actors to be there two hours after the call time for the crew.

4. Food. Food. Food. Go shopping the day before at a grocery store and get cold cuts, bagels, energy bars, etc. Have somebody whose job it is to handle food, period. There should be food as soon as people get there, food for people to snack on. Lunch should be served on time, and, yes, plan for dinner. Even if you really hope that you'll be done with your shoot at 5PM on Saturday. You usually won't. So don't live in denial through 5, 6 and 7PM that you won't have to feed people another meal. Then you end up sending out for pizza late, and now it takes time to get there, etc.

4. As somebody already mentioned: leave loads more time for rendering. And remember, if you get Foreign Film and you are then going to play around with subtitles, add even more time for rendering.

5. Embrace your genre and your elements enthusiastically.


6. Have fun!

Here is one of our films that won us the most awards. Best of Boston Finalist, Best Acting, Best Editing, Best Direction, Best Use of Genre, Best Use of Character and the Audience Award.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_uWS01PC0U
 
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directorik said:
Of course the solution to that happening is telling the writers the
constraint this specific project faces. Allow the writers to be part of
the team.
Click to expand...

We did, but I think we just didn't find the right people. It's also a challenge for us as we've done so many of these - it can be hard to bring someone in for a major role like that with a team that's already so used to working with each other, we do our best to include them but at the same time we're barreling ahead with our normal routine.

Sweetie said:
Don, link that fighting video with the dog you did for the 48hr one...
Click to expand...

This one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYF9HB5_43Q

That was actually a 7-day competition, so we got a little more ambitious with it. We had about 2 1/2 full days of shooting and another couple days for post, and it's one of our longest projects at 9 minutes.

It was one of the projects where we brought in a writer though. We all brainstormed ideas, and we discussed the limitations of what we could achieve with the writer - i.e. we didn't have a real greenscreen or soundstage, so we were limited to filming a single car at a time for the chase scene because of the amount of fabric we had. We wanted to keep the fight scene and car chase separate so we wouldn't have to composite the entire film, etc.

After we'd settled on a basic story outline the writer ran with it on his own and got back to us with a script a day later - and it was great! Unfortunately it revolved around a car chase which crossed the entire span of the city, starting at the golden gate bridge and ending up at fisherman's wharf. Two cars were involved, one full of good guys and one full of bad guys - and at multiple points in the chase the cars pulled to a stop at a stop light, everyone jumped out of the cars and started fighting until the light changed, and then jumped back into the cars to continue the chase (if I remember correctly they actually switch cars midway through the chase). It would have been a great film, but I'm not sure we could have pulled it off in two weeks, let alone two days. Most of it would have to be shot practically rather than on green screen, and that would have required permits, a much bigger crew, and a much bigger budget (we spent about $700 total, the majority on food for the crew).

We ended up keeping some good lines of dialogue from that script, but ultimately we had to re-write most of it to bring it back in line with the original story we'd come up with and to fit within the limitations of our resources and capabilities.

It is a good example of making the most out of a single location though. The warehouse is a parking garage at the headquarters of a company one of the team members worked at - it's not used on the weekends at all so we basically had it all to ourselves for two days (not just the garage, but their offices too). We used a couple conference rooms in the building as our production office and costume/makeup prep area. The girlfriend's kitchen is in the building break room. The warehouse became our soundstage for the car chase as well - we used green fabric stretched between c-stands and just moved it around the vehicles as necessary. The alleyway is out behind the same location. All the background plates are shot in the neighborhood just outside the building. We were basically able to camp out there for the weekend and get everything we needed without having to move the crew around at all.

Even with the extra days there was stuff we had to drop. We actually had a convertible Ferrari for the main character to use in the chase - but we could only use it for about 4 hours on one day. Ultimately we had to give it up even though it would have looked cooler (and been easier to shoot in) because we knew it would take us more time than that to finish. The dumb henchman and the motorcycle were both supposed to fly over a cliff - but after spending a few hours trying to make the shots work we finally had to scrap them both because the logistics of getting them done just weren't going to fit our remaining time. We tried to haze the warehouse with a fog machine but it was too big, and we didn't have the time or money to get a proper hazer with the capacity for a space that big.

When I watch it now there's a million things I'd change or wish we could do differently - but I'm still happy with it overall, and it was a great learning experience and a lot of fun to do. It's not high art by any means, but we picked up the audience choice award so I feel like we succeeded in our main goals of creating something fun and entertaining.
 
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Dude, you're going to spend a weekend making a movie with your son and wife. How awesome is that? It's pretty awesome!

Your son is right. Don't worry about it. Your first effort will likely suck. Whatever. It's about the process, learning how to do things by doing. And having fun!

Your best editor is probably your son. I say that only because kids are so much better at figuring out technology than us old folk. As a skill, editing is merely learning how to use the software, and it's not rocket surgery. As an artform, editing is EXTREMELY subjective, so why not let your son take control? This project is a way for you and he to connect, no?
 
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To play off what Cracker said, if you're getting your son involved, don't take this too seriously. If you want him to have a meaningful contribution, well, you're going to struggle to attract highly skilled people (who you're not friends with). If you make it too serious, give its your first attempt at filmmaking, it'll become a stressful situation, and not that much fun for your son - you also risk not involving him at all and upsetting him.

So just make it a fun experience. Just do it. Plan it, but don't stress about it. By all means, if you find people wanting to get involved, get them on board, but don't push your son into the background. Make sure they know its just for fun, and a father-son type project, so they don't have false expectations either.
 
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Sweetie said:
I just died a little on the inside ;(
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WalterB said:
+1

3 frames can give a different meaning to a scene...
Order can give a different meaning to a scene...
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directorik said:
Ouch.
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Am I the only one who read the following sentence? CF was clearly referring only to the mechanical skills necessary with that line, not the creative aspects:

Cracker Funk said:
As a skill, editing is merely learning how to use the software, and it's not rocket surgery. As an artform, editing is EXTREMELY subjective, so why not let your son take control?
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I am just trying to sit back and soak in all the advice. I appreciate it and enjoy reading about others' experiences.

I've recruited a couple of friends who have been in a few movies, one who acted in movies and tv.

Most of all, I appreciate the advice to not push my son to the background. I can see the temptation to take over and make it "my project" and leave a bad taste in his mouth.

He wants to act in a small part and wants to be a part of the writing process-- but he wants nothing to do with the editing phase for this project. For lot of reasons, actually, 1) he doesn't want to use what he knows (Movie Maker) and he doesn't think he can devote the time to learn Premiere well enough to be fast enough with it to hit the deadline on Sunday, but mainly, 2) he wants to get some sleep over that weekend. Still, CF's advice to provide him more editing opportunities is sure to make him a better writer and director of his own youtube content-- and he does pick up the technical mechanics of learning things quicker than I do... when he has the patience to try. It has been really fun watching films with him to see him picking apart a scene, the angles, the shot that shows a reaction instead of dialogue, cutting to b to draw attention to something. My son does also want to lean over the shoulder of an editor to learn though, and that is cool.

I've recruited a couple of friends who have been in a few movies, one who acted in movies and tv. One is also good with guitar and vocals which would be nice if we draw "musical."

I've recruited a great sound guy that can even compose, but a paying gig came along that weekend so back to square one there. With this kind of craziness, you really can't have too many backup plans.
 
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