48 Hour Film Project

Jackson Lewis (Sean Haley) takes aim at securing a new job in a dead world.

This past weekend we once again teamed up with The Collective Project Inc. to tackle the 48 Hour Film Project. We picked genres Friday night, and to our delight we drew Horror, which as you know is kind of our specialty.

Napalm McQueen (Elizabeth Jarrett), Cindy Mayhew (Marie Barker) and Street Rat (Dylan Schettina) assess Jackson's capability for joining their team.

Making a film in 48 hours is no easy feat. Troll Picnic, Jake and Julie Vs. The Boogeyman! and First Date all took over a year to complete, and while there were other factors involved (the former two were on class schedules while the latter was continually forced to the back burner because of professional commitments) movies nevertheless take a substantial amount of time to complete from pre-production all the way through post.

Cindy tries to defuse a tense situation.

Our strategy for finishing a movie in 48 hours was really pretty simple: delegation. Immediately upon receiving the genre, character, prop and line of dialogue Greg Garrison (writer of Mario and Luigi and The Red Herring) started cranking out a draft, which allowed the film's director Torey Haas and its producer Corey Bradberry to make phone calls and rally people together. Once a rough story line was put together, Torey met with the DP Nick Lauinger to flesh out the action sequences that bookended the film while Greg continued writing the script with some assistance from Corey and the film's main cast Sean Haley, Elizabeth Jarrett and Dylan Schettina. By 11 pm our script was written and the action was blocked out.

Haste makes waste doesn't apply when you're being watched by skulks.

Thanks to The Collective we were able to secure a shooting location at Atlanta's the Goat Farm, and anyone who's been there knows it's the perfect setting for a post-apocalyptic world. The main cast and crew met at 9 am on Saturday, and Corey- an accomplished theater director in his own right- began rehearsing the cast (which in addition to Sean, Elizabeth and Dylan also included the very talented Marie Barker) while Torey ironed out the shot schedule and prepped the crew for the shoot. By noon we moved to our first and primary location and began shooting the long dialogue sequence that composes the majority of the film. As expected, shooting did go a bit slower than usual- hey, we still only had a few hours to prep a very ambitious project- but we were able to make up a good bit of time by shooting with multiple cameras (Canon would be proud since at one point we had an entire family line-up: a 7D, a 60D and a T2i) and covering several close-ups at once. Thanks to Corey's rehearsals only minor adjustments needed to be made to performance while on set, and barring sound issues most shots were accomplished in 2 or 3 takes. Once each camera card filled up Jay Holloway (director of Crowscare) dumped the footage and begin transcoding the H.264 files to ProRes using 5DtoRGB- this was of course slower than Compressor or MPEG Streamclip, but it allows for better color correction, which Torey was adamant on having to squeeze more production value into the film. As the footage finished transcoding Fred Grant, the film's editor, began putting a cut together while we were still shooting the final action sequence. Shooting wrapped at 12:30 am- not bad for 30+ shots with extensive special effects, light gags and minimum prep time!

A skulk (Nick Beutell) watches for its next prey.

Our make-up artist Ricky Hess and his assistant Katelyn Brammer knocked out some amazing make-up and creature effects, crafting the film's "skulks"- zombie/mutant hybrids- with a strong Italian zombie vibe. Our very patient extras Mariam Abazeri, Nick Beutell and Willam Dwelle all donned the extensive make-up (which took over an hour to apply), and Katelyn even filled in as a skulk as the night drew on. Ricky also brought his patented blood pump, which enabled us to once again shoot (with a gun, not a camera) Dylan Mario and Luigi-style. Prop master John Holbrook literally brought an arsenal of guns and knives to outfit our actors and later helped out on grip duty with Kevin Hicks, and together they were able to come up with ingenious solutions for hanging lights and covering windows that allowed Nick to get some pretty amazing shots. Lastly, Greg and Erica Sato helped out with wardrobe, catering and other miscellaneous task throughout the day. Erica once again baked cookies, which the cast and crew most definitely appreciated.

Jackson springs to action as the skulks close in.

After shooting wrapped Torey, Fred and Jay stayed up all night on Saturday to work on the edit, and by noon on Sunday a full cut was complete and sent to Quyen Tran for sound design. Pillage and Plunder's Hsiang-Ming Wen began writing the John Carpenter-inspired synth score while we were still shooting on Saturday, and on Sunday he simply tailored what he had already composed to fit the timing of the edit. Sunday afternoon was devoted to color correction and title creation (Torey and Hsiang respectively), and upon receiving the final audio mix from Quyen around 6:30 we put it all together, exported a ProRes and slapped it on thumb drive, which Greg and Erica dropped off to the 48 Hour team right at 7:30.

The shoot was not without its casualties- Greg severely damaged his car during the opening shot and Ricky contracted a nasty case of pink eye- but overall it went as smoothly as it possibly could have thanks to all the delegation. Everyone from both MonsterBuster and The Collective really put their best foot forward to get this movie out the door in 48 hours. Were we successful? Come to the Plaza this Saturday, June 23rd at 7:00 pm to see Making the Cut and decide for yourself! Tickets are available here (we're in group F), and since there is an audience choice award voted on at the screening we would definitely appreciate it if you are able to come. Making the Cut will also premiere on our YouTube channel next week.