Just the Way You Are
“Desperate for a birthday gift to win over his girlfriend, Jasper enlists the services of a “consultant” who has special talents, and gets more than he bargained for.” Written, Shot, Edited and Scored in 48 Hours for the 2011 San Francisco 48 Hour Film Festival.
Becoming a great filmmaker means getting lots of practice. Our philosophy is to rapid prototype and the 48 Hour Film Festival was the perfect opportunity to get experience cranking out a highly finished product in a super short amount of time. In the course of two days we wrote a screenplay, shot a slew of beautiful scenes, and then edited and scored a film that turned into an epic adventure.
There were over 50 films submitted this year and our film received four nominations so we must be doing something right!
I can’t remember the last time I had this much fun making a film and wanted to share the experience. Here are a few things I learned:
- brainstorm before hand. Since you don’t get your genre until the day of the event it’s helpful to have a variety of ideas that you’ve developed a few days prior so you have a place to start when the starting guns are fired.
- use improv actors. Our willingness to adapt on the fly allowed us to come with great lines and was a good strategy for authentically developing our characters in short period of time.
