12 posts tagged “shortfilms”

Here's the Monmouth Film Collective's entry in the 2009 Portland, Oregon 48 Hour Film Project (read more). You can also view it on blip.tv.

past-present

This past weekend I participated in my third 48 Hour Film Project. Got the film done and in on time. Every year there's something that goes haywire. The previous two it was making copies for submission that proved to be inexplicably difficult. This year it was chasing down release forms from cast and crew. We normally head to Portland on Saturday night for editing, but this time we stayed in Monmouth to take advantage of the MacPro and full FCP. I think that was right the choice, but am glad we gave ourselves plenty of time to get to the drop-off location.

We drew "drama" as our genre this year. Leaving aside that this seems more like a meta-category than a discrete "genre", it was still more fun and satisfactory to work with in this framework than last year's "historical fiction/period piece", which is, I imagine, very difficult for anyone but people with unique resources. Our creative process involved a lot of improvisation, which was fun, and produced a lot of naturalistic dialogue. I don't think this kind of approach is appropriate for all forms of film, but it's a cool way to work.

More to come, including the film.

My filmmaking activities have been curtailed by the day-to-day at the university, but last Friday, 13 February, I screened a short film, "24-Hour Comics Day at Cosmic Monkey", as part of the Oregon 150 commemoration at Western. The short was produced from footage shot for my larger documentary project on the comic book scene in Portland, Oregon (USA). I've inserted the YouTube version below, but better viewing can be found on my lo-fi cinema page at blip.tv.

"The Decision", the Monmouth Film Collective's 48 Hour Film Project short is now online at blip.tv and on YouTube. I've inserted the YouTube version below. blip offers better viewing, including a Quicktime version (best quality for online viewing, but it will take longer to load).

View in Flash on lo-fi cinema at blip.tv.
View in Quicktime on lo-fi cinema at blip.tv.

Last weekend (August 8-10), version two of the Monmouth Film Collective participated in the Portland, Oregon 48 Hour Film Project. We successfully finished our film and got it in on time (the event ran from 7:00 on Friday to 7:30 on Sunday; we got the film delivered by 7:00).

Our genre was historical fiction, and the Portland elements were:

• Character: Jake or Jane Gravenstein, wellness practioner.
• Line of dialogue: “Okay, I think I got it straight.”
• Prop: jumper cables.

This year's experience was immediately different from last year's in that the genre we drew was both more intimidating and more constraining. Fantasy, the genre we drew in 2007, is nothing but artistic license. Historical fiction comes with more limits, and more of a burden in terms of “getting it right.”

We decided on a 1930s, Great Depression story involving a family, three kids and a dad, looking for a place to stay and falling into the web of a maybe crazy, maybe craven “inventor” claiming to have a magical “healing machine”. I jumped on the idea because I immediately envisioned the family walking along a dusty railway. The writers did much more with the idea, obviously. It was also relatively easier to imagine at least roughly being able to approximate the look and feel of the period.

Naturally, the weather did not really cooperate. It rained over night, and was alternately sunny and cloudy all day on Saturday. Getting the “dust bowl” look and feel was not going to happen, but fortunately it being August, there was a lot of gold and brown in the landscape in any event. In other respects, the constantly changing light was a challenge for the photography, but I think we were able to work around it sufficiently to give us a consistent look when we needed it.

I remember being pretty happy with last year's film. I wouldn't say I was unhappy with this year's, which we titled “The Decision”, but it is more uneven, and there are more things I wish I had done a little different, particularly in editing. Our genre and our story was, ultimately, more ambitious this year. So, whereas last year, the low rent approach that is almost necessitated by the strictures of the event really worked, this year it became a source of frustration. On the other hand, the best moments in the new film are better than those from last year's.

This has nothing to do with the fine work of cast and crew. Our team was a mix of old and new faces, and we worked together well. I think that work is well-represented in the final film. I just can't help feeling that the end work is less than the talents and ambitions of the team.

This year's Monmouth Film Collective was, in addition to myself: Maren Bradley Anderson, David Berrier, Tristan Berrier, Rachel Bridgewater, Anne-Marie Deitering, David Doellinger, Ben Grimes, Jordan Hofer, Jason Kirtland, Bill Madden, Jesse Madden, Mark Madland, Orion Metzner, Chris Olsenius, Emily Plec, Charley Waller, and Rosanne Waller.

Watch last year's film, “DreemRz, Inc.”
See photos from this year.
This year's film coming soon. (It's now here).

I've posted the Willamette Valley Film Collective's entry in the 2008 International Documentary Challenge to the web, both at blip.tv and YouTube. The YouTube version is inserted here, and links to the (better quality) blip.tv versions are below.

8veU

Taking some license, I'm sure, with a recent loosening of the International Documentary Challenge's warnings against posting entries online, I've put the Willamette Valley Film Collective's 2007 entry, "Visual Vitriol: The Art of Punk," up at lo-fi cinema on blip.tv. Our genre was "art" and the theme for the year was "faith." More details at blip.

View the flash version.
View in Quicktime.

If you're a Dazed and Confused (1993) fan, I suspect you'll like my newest post to lo-fi cinema. And even if you're not, it's an interesting, if minor, experiment with the pliability of digital media; I made the video from digital still photos taken of a TV broadcast of the movie on Encore. If nothing else, it's a short look.

Watch the Flash version.
Watch the Quicktime version.

The biggest drama in this year's IDC was at the beginning of the week as we lost one member of the crew after another, and then scrambled to nail down a subject to fit into our selected genre of "Music." Ironically enough given that director David Doellinger is a historian, we pretty well took our other choice, "Historical," off the table for lack of compelling ideas (it isn't actually all that ironic if you think through the proposition of asking a professional historian to compress what they normally do with, often, years of work into five days and four to seven minutes of video).

Fortunately for us, one of the remaining crew, Jenn Richards, put us onto a house near the WOU campus occupied by music majors and host to a monthly concert series that just happened to be running on the Friday of the IDC (March 7). David, Norris Lee, Jenn, and I went to work on Friday, and Josh Du Chene joined us on Saturday. Maren Anderson found some time away from the new kiddo to help preview raw footage.

One of the key lessons I've learned from these timed film competitions is the benefit of starting editing early. To that end, I devoted myself as much as possible to that job during the competition. I can't say for sure if this year's effort is "better" than last year's, but I do think that it's more immediately accessible and certainly less fueled by crazed, late, late (or early, early depending on your perspective) punchiness.

For the record, this year's Willamette Valley Film Collective was: myself (editor and producer), David Doellinger (director and miscellaneous tasks), Jenn Richards (co-producer, sound, original music), Josh Du Chene (sound and photography), and Norris Lee (behind-the-scenes photography). Maren and Anne-Marie assisted with editing. Thanks to the residents of "8veU" and Tom Bergeron and the Brazilian Combo, who played Friday night.

You can watch a preview at blip.tv. Go here for a Quicktime version.

I have been quietly putting together another version of the Willamette Valley Film Collective to participate in the 2008 International Documentary Challenge. This will be the third time I've done this. With some urging from Anne-Marie, I was thinking about not organizing an entry this year, but then David Doellinger, a WVFC veteran, expressed his enthusiasm for giving it another go, and that's all it took to tip me in the other direction.

One difference between this year and the previous two is that I am limiting my own involvement to producer and editor, rather than taking on those roles plus that of director and co-photographer as well. Partly, this is out of curiosity. Almost from the beginning of my venture into filmmaking, I've wanted to experience the process from the perspective of a photographer or editor independent of also acting as director. Partly, this is due to feeling overworked and over stressed due to added responsibilities on campus this year. And partly it is because I want to give other participants the experience of taking on other roles. David will be directing this year. His wife, Erin Marr, will be one of, or the, primary photographers (her likely co-photographer is William Bragg, who was DP for the Monmouth Film Collective in last summer's 48 Hour Film Project).

My original vision for these experiences was for the "collective" part of the team name to be a driving force for what we did, but what I discovered in the first year is that people aren't actually comfortable with that. Not everyone wants to work the camera or make decisions, etc. Maybe this is due to feeling intimidated by the equipment or lack of confidence. I don't know, but I did learn a valuable lesson about the differences between collaborative and collectivist work. People don't have to be "equal" to be valued or satisfied by their participation in a project like this. And the truth is the second year when I took more of a traditional directorial role was a better experience, and led to a better film, than the previous year when I had a more, well, communist vision of the process, something which just created tension from unresolved expectations of everyone wanting to take a turn on the camera and so on.

Read about last year's event (the post about 2006 is no longer online).