48-hour Film Festival

I LOVE FILMMAKING!!! This weekend, I was part of a Regent competition to write, film, edit, and deliver a 4-7 minute film in 2 days. It was an awesome experience, and my team (we call ourselves Veritas Films) produced a beautiful film. I acted as the camera operator and editor for the project. The entire process made me so much more excited about the calling God has placed on my heart to work in this business. Although, we were exhausted, stretched, and cranky, watching our final credits role made all that dissipate. We all work very well together, and brought our specific talents to the project. So here's what happened...

On Friday night at 7 PM, we met in a room with 9 other teams to pick our genre. The categories were mystery, drama, musical, horror, sci-fi, romance, comedy, heist, mockumentary, and fantasy. That was not something we got to pick ahead of time, which added to the chaos of the project. No one wanted the musical! Thankfully, our team leader drew drama, which was a category that we already had a really good script idea for. Another element of the contest was that we had to incorporate certain items into our project. Every team was required to have the following things appear on screen: a popsicle stick, a character named Catherine Frost (agent), and say the line "I thought it would be heavier." So as soon as we were dismissed, we headed to Jennifer's house for a scriptwriting party. Jillian, Renee, and I got lost trying to find Jennifer's house...and then Renee locked her keys in the car! Exciting weekend right from the start.

Here we are looking for Jennifer's street

Thank goodness Jennifer makes amazing iced coffee, because we were up until 4 AM writing the script! We crashed at Jennifer's house, and after about 1 1/2 hours of sleep, it was time to head to our first location. We spent the morning filming at a bar (I made an appearance as an extra in that scene!), and then headed home for lunch. The rest of the day we filmed at Jennifer's house since our script centers around a young married couple at home. Amazingly, we finished all the filming we needed by 9:30 PM on Saturday, so we were able to get a full night of sleep. Here's a bunch of photos of the weekend...

Scriptwriting, brainstorming, planning, coffee

Kalani working on our team logo

Working late into the night...and early into the morning

Planning on the way to our location shoot

Veritas Films team...I love these guys!
From right: Jennifer, me, Jillian, Renee, John, and Kalani

Quiet on the set!

Our director John seems happy with my editing style

On Sunday, I got up at 7:30 AM to start importing our 37 minutes of footage and put a rough cut together before our meeting at noon. With my Final Cut Pro expertise and Kalani's animation skills, we ended up with a very compelling and professional drama. It took a while, but with my team's input, encouragement, and creative ideas, we finished the final version and John handed it in 15 minutes before deadline. The premier is this Friday, and we will get to see all the films and discover who won. All the projects are judged by non-Regent professionals in the industry. I'll let you know how we do!