Chicago 48 Hour Film Festival 2021
AKA Team Goat Rodeo (Reaper).
AKA Expect a sh*tshow get a sh*tshow.
AKA We made a film in 48 hours. Somehow.
Before you read the rest of this blog you can watch the film that team Reaper (AKA Team Goat Rodeo) made for the 48h Film Festival here. Please note that is a very darkly lit horror film with a few jump scares. It’s not for everyone and I understand that.
You can watch the making of/BTS video here.
While I do talk about what exactly the 48h film festival is and how it works if you are interested in reading the full rules you can do so here.
I would also like to say before reading this I’m not going to go into exactly what cameras, lights, etc… we used as it doesn’t seem important.
For those of you who don’t know the 48h Film Festival is exactly as it sounds, you (and probably your team, although people have done it 100% solo) have 48 hours to make a film. However theres a catch, a big catch — any and all creative work (excluding stock music/sound effects) has to be done during the 48 hours. To top that off at the kick off event you literally draw two genres out of a hat and your film can be either of the genres or both. Lastly you are given a character, prop, and line of dialogue that your four to seven minute film must include.
You can (and really should) plan and have everything else in place (Cast, Crew, Gear, Locations, etc…) prior to the contest. Heres what I think a lot of teams miss or don’t really understand and where I think the best teams shine-
The 48h Film Festival isn’t really a film making challenge, at least not at it’s core, it’s a logistics and planning challenge.
Sure the act you are performing is making a film but in order to pull it off the main challenge is planning and logistics. What I personally have found works best is to have a “base camp” location. I.E. A location you can write, shoot, edit, sleep, and eat at. While I wasn’t able to work that out for this contest, I was able to get a soundstage for us to shoot in all of Saturday that all but one member of the cast and crew had worked out of before.
We would up planning/writing at a local Denny’s, and myself and the editor edited in his basement.
Our Planning and Prep Work
Before I really get into I want to share with you our planned schedule, location, cast and crew.
Location:
Our location was an indie sound stage owned by our wonderful Executive Producer, AB.
Cast and Crew:
Crew wise we had 7 crew members, including myself.
Cast wise we had 3 cast members.
Schedule:
10/01/2021
17:30–17:45— Arrive at the kick off event.
18:00 — 18:30 — Draw genre, get required elements.
19:00–19:30 — Meet up for writing and planning session.
10/02/2021
09:00 Arrive at location. Couldn’t really get in sooner as another team was shooting there on 10/01/2021 and through the early morning of 10/02/2021.
09:10 In person introductions.
09:15 Block/rehearsal.
10:15 Shoot.
13:00 (ish)Lunch.
13:30 Shoot some more.
20:00 Wrap.
10/03/2021
Edit. Upload the film and paper work by 19:00.
Production:
A few days before the contest kicked off I said to a friend of mine, who was also working as a crew member on the project, that I expected the project to be a sh*tshow solely based on the nature of the project. 48 hours to make a film from start to finish was going to be utter chaos and that is really part of the fun of it all. Can you even make a film in 48 hours? Will it be good or at least watchable?
What would up happening was though retrospectively a comedy of errors. I do really wonder if a less experienced team could have persevered and prevailed if they had the luck we did.
On 10/01/2021 I arrived at the kick off event (which was at a hotel) at 17:30ish. I wonder in to find the lobby packed with guests checking into the hotel and 0 signage. Eventually I make it out to the courtyard and ask people standing around if this was for the 48h Film Festival. I find out it was and take a seat, hop on Messenger to plan with the team while listing to their DJ and waiting for the event to start. 18:00 rolls around, the courtyard is filling up however the host/producer is no where to be found.
Around this time I get a text message from a cast member, saying they are buried in other work and are unsure if they can make it tomorrow. I tell them no problem, I don’t even know the genre/required elements yet, but I will need to know in the next hour if they can make it. They get back to me right away and say it’s best if they drop out as it’s iffy they are going to be able to make it. While I was a little annoyed at the loss of a cast member a big part of that was due to the fact we were seemingly nowhere near starting the kick off event. We were told this event started at 18:00, it is now a little past 18:00 and it hasn’t started, at least not in the way I was expecting.
In the actors defense, if they were going to drop off during the contest, they dropped out the exact right away at the exact right time. I knew they wouldn’t be able to make it well ahead of even writing or planning the script. While going down to two actors wasn’t great there really wasn’t any harm done.
Moving along 18:25 comes, no sign of the event starting soon however I do notice that the person sitting next to me has a sheet of paper with some useful information on it.
I ask them about it and they said I was supposed to check in. I thank them and then proceed to wonder around the sinageless hotel till I find the check in, which was located in a back corner. I check and get back to the courtyard. A little later the host comes on stage, tells us to mingle, enjoy the food, and that we’d be starting soon.
Finally 19:00 comes, the host/producer comes on stage and we start drawing our genres from a hat. I draw horror and/or period piece. 10 minutes later we are given the following required elements:
Character: Gretta OR Greg Van Tendril, Florist.
Prop: A recycling bin.
Line: “Believe it or not, it’s true” OR “Believe it or not, it is true.”
All in all I felt we got a great genre draw in horror and the rest of elements were decent but workable. I’m not at all against period pieces, in fact Absolution was borderline/inadvertently a period piece, I just wasn’t about to attempt it 48 hours. Plus horror can be fun and the horror genre it’s self lends its self to more leeway in a lot of spaces.
Right after I got all the required elements I informed our team the genre and the elements and told the writing team to start thinking of ideas while I was on the drive over so we could discuss what we were going to make. On the drive over I thought of a really cool concept for a film but needed a third actor. I asked my team to post on Facebook to find someone, which they did, and we did.
I would up arriving at Denny’s around 20:00. Not terribly late all things considered. I explained to my team the concept and my thoughts behind it. Having done the 48h Film Festival in the past and knowing that in each and every case editing has almost always been our achilles heel I wanted to fake a one take film. I didn't really want to shoot coverage — I wanted to simply post. I wanted all editing choices to be baked in during the day. The downside of this method was that either the film would work or it wouldn’t and if something didn’t work or a bit off we were stuck with it. Given the nature of the 48h film festival I figured why not — lets make it as easy on ourselves in post as possible.
So how did I plan on faking a one take film? Whip pans. When we needed to cut or change scenes we would whip pan out of one scene and into the next. In post all you do is cut somewhere between the two whip pans and then bam! — seamless one take shot!
Mostly anyway.
Everyone was on board with the idea, we wrote a “script” for the film, emailed it out to everyone, figured out how we were getting what props/supplies, and then planned on meeting up at the location around 09:00. As we were leaving one of the crew members, who lives somewhat close to me, informed me that his other car broke down and he would need a ride. I told him I could do it but it meant that I couldn’t bring a lot of gear. I was also planning on getting there around 07:30–08:00 so I could set up a few things before people got there (crafty, get a feel for what kind of shape the place was in, etc…) I wasn’t thrilled about another last minute hick up but, as has been the theme of this film, disasters happen.
I wound up picking him up around 07:40 and getting to the location around 8:10, a little late but still plenty of time to do what I needed to get done. I let him off so he can go in and open up the loading dock while I drive around back.
Without getting into exact details of how we were locked out, we were locked out of the location and not even sure if we were going to be able to get in at all. After some panicked calls we were able to get in around 08:40 when the studio owner showed up with the key to let us in.
The rest of the crew and one of the cast members arrived at the call time.
09:15 rolls around and we are missing two actors, I post in the group chat about it, and get a call from one of them. The actor tells me that he was supposed to get a ride from the other actor but said actor didn’t show up and is on his way but his car is kind of janky so its going to take him a bit. I say no problem, thanks for letting me know, just get here safely. I try calling the actor who was supposed to give him a ride to no luck. I Facebook and text message to a further no avail. I decide this actor has until the other actor shows up to contact me or I’m going to have to replace him.
Shocking no one at this point, the actor arrives at roughly 10:30, I haven’t heard from the other actor and the first person I call to replace them (who I should have just cast in the first place, sorry) is free and excited to join the team. I tell the actor who has no called, no showed not to come, if they were even planning on it, as I have recast them.
With two actors in at the location, both of which are needed for the flashback scenes, and given that we had to shoot those two scenes first due to make up changes we get to work.
Shooting for the rest of the day goes pretty smoothly and even with reshooting a flashback scene at the end because it made more sense writing wise we manage to wrap an hour early.
Editing, as planned for, also went smoothly. For the most part, too, our film worked. A few of the whip pans could have been better but all things considered I don’t think I could have asked for a better final film.
Taking the project as a whole, I’m actually really proud of it and the work my team did.
Now the big question — Did we make the finals? Did we an award?
I have no idea if we were a finalist. I didn’t attend the final screening as this years contest, unlike the past 10 or so years, they didn’t announce finalists ahead of schedule. If you wanted to go to the screening you had to pay $30 (or $20 if you had a code) and find out day of. Given the disaster the kick off event was it just didn’t feel worth the money, time, and effort to attend the finals. If I missed out on winning an award and accepting it in person, oh well, sucks to be me, I guess.
That being said — we did not win an award. Most of the awards went to two films and good for them. Congrats guys!
Final Thoughts:
1: The only reason the actor who no called, no showed isn’t 100% black listed from anything I ever produce or direct again is because I expected chaos in the 48h Film Festival, its the nature of the beast. I also emailed everyone saying that if they didn’t feel well, don’t come, we will manage. I didn’t say please let us know if your not feeling well and won’t be coming though, I assumed that was implied. Shame on me for that I suppose. Next time I’ll add that to the shoot info email.
Furthermore, while it’s not say I don’t care about the end product, I care less about it than something such as “The Alexis Project”, “Absolution” or “Reaper, Inc.” (If/when that gets made). That being said, while this actor isn’t officially black listed from future projects I helm, I’m unlikely to ever cast them again. Yes I said don’t come if your feeling sick, so I do thank the actor for not coming because they were unwell, but they should have texted me to let me know I need to replace them, not leave me hanging and thats a big deal to me.
PSA if something comes up and you have to drop out last minute, your going to be late, or whatever let the producer know as soon as possible so they can plan around it. Chances are most people will be annoyed, pissed, but they will understand and appreciate the fact you gave them a chance to move forward without wasting (more of) anyones time. While we didn’t start shooting much later than planned, and it worked fine in the end, it was really getting stressful for a bit.
2: I’m honestly amazed that despite 4 major disasters we were able to finish and make as high quality of a film as we were able to. The fact that we had everything in place the day of ready to go, we knew when we needed to shoot, what we needed to shoot, and how we needed to shoot really saved us. Where we failed in the casting department we made up in pure logistics and it would up paying off even bigger in the end than I expected.
3: Our concept and idea played a huge part in allowing us to just power through it. All our editing was functionally done in camera and it was only going to cut together one way. Whatever we blocked was exactly what we were going to get in the edit.
4: This can’t be overstated — a major part of our “success” and just being able to finish came down to the quality of the crew we had and the experience the crew had working with each other prior to the shoot. With the exception of two people, one actor, and one crew member, who amusingly had worked together before, everyone else had worked together/came from “Bradman: The Movie”*, “Absolution”, or “Production Playgrounds”. We trusted each other and knew we could hussle to pull it off. I’m grateful for such a talented, dedicated, and loyal crew.
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* I’m working on the blog about “Bradman: The Movie”. It’s just hard because I don’t want to focus on gear and thats what I keep writing about. I will update this piece/footnote when I publish it.
