Captain Pixel's entry into the 2010 Nashville 48 Hour Film Festival
In 2007, I made a film for the Nashville 48 Film Festival. If you’re not familiar with the fest, teams from around each city must write, shoot, and edit a 4-7 minute film in just 48 hours. The teams are given a line of dialogue, a prop, a character, and a hat-pulled genre. I’d like to say that my 2007 film was an emotionally satisfying experience — cathartic — a blood, sweat, and genius-soaked 6 minute masterpiece.
Not quite.
On the contrary, we were unprepared and under-equipped. My partner and I fought over the story well into the second day. With the pressure constantly on my back, all I could think was, “Why did I volunteer for this?!” All the trials and tribulations of a a year-long film shoot were miniaturized and shoved into two days. And then, with no time to reflect on what we’d made, we turned it into the fest and watched it at the Belcourt Theatre with a crowd full of other entrants.
And it bombed.
There’s nothing quite like the feeling of watching your precious pretensions get ripped apart by a sea of indifferent eyes. Until you screen your film in front of an audience, you don’t truly know how well it works. Opening night walloped me with the reality that our film suffered from too much dialogue, a confusing narrative theme, and a host of other problems. (The editing was awesome though!) The experience of watching people not laugh, not watch attentively, whisper suspiciously, and clap half-halfheartedly brought me right back to film school, where such experiences either turned you into an insufferable prima donna with an immunity to constructive criticism or an angry, bitter, self-doubting realist with a drug or alcohol problem.
I swore I would never make a 48 hour film again.
. . .
Guess what I did last weekend?
My friends from the excellent geek-media podcast Cinegeek were making a film for the fest, and they asked me to run sound. And for some strange reason, I said yes. We pulled the genre “mocumentary,” hashed out the ideas for the film collectively, and shot it fairly painlessly. And while I haven’t seen the finished product, everything about the experience felt great. Emotionally satisfying. Cathartic. That thing about blood, sweat, and genius.
So why such a different experience? For one, the 2010 team (Captain Pixel Productions) was very well organized. We had several possible locations and actors booked in advance. We got together for a pre-fest meeting to discuss what we all wanted from the experience. We watched other short films for inspiration. And we came up with a great idea that propelled us through all the trials. Perhaps most importantly, I wasn’t in charge and the pressure wasn’t on my back.
I won’t give away what our film was about; I prefer to let your imaginations run wild with the above-poster. But if your appetite is wet, come see our film in the Group A screenings this Wednesday at the Belcourt. Tickets are selling out fast.
And if you don’t like it, please clap loudly anyway. I really can’t afford a drinking problem right now.
Tony Youngblood is the current Foursquare Mayor of the Belcourt Theatre, a film and music snob, and producer of the experimental improv music blog and podcast Theatre Intangible. His favorite films include Eric Rohmer’s The Green Ray, Abbass Kiarostami’s The Wind Will Carry Us, Ingmar Bergman’s The Magician, Lee Chang Dong’s Oasis, and Rob Reiner’s This Is Spinal Tap.
I want to see the pic that bombed – maybe the audience just wasn't ready back in 2007!
I want to see the pic that bombed – maybe the audience just wasn't ready back in 2007!
I want to see the pic that bombed – maybe the audience just wasn't ready back in 2007!
I did the 48 Hour Film Festival two years in a row in Orlando. Talk about lost sleep, drama, hundreds of dollars spent, and a short movie that is decent knowing it was made in less than 48 hours.
First year, our actors wanted to improvise each scene, meaning all coverage was useless. We pulled Ghost Story.
Second year, we lost 12 hours due to camera capture malfunctions. Still pulled it off last minute, but could have been better with that lost 12 hours. We pulled Film de Femme.
Hey Jett, I'll send that one and this year's film your way!
I’ve always had great experiences and teams doing the 48 Hour Film Festival here in Orlando! I guess I’ve gotten lucky! Our 2010 48 Hour project has been the best experience yet! Super Dragon Team Alpha Force One might just win something this time :-)