Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Change of Plans

The 48 Hour Film Project just had an opening.

And we — that is, the team I’m directing, Tohubohu “Thornhill” — was first on the waiting list.

After a quick call to my producer, I accepted.

We’re back in the competition! Both teams, “Kaplan” and “Thornhill.”

This is what we’d planned all along. Two films, each an independent entity, but connected by a common story thread. I am absolutely walking on air right now.

I’ve now got one hell of a lot of work to do across the next two days, but I’ve got some amazing people all willing to help (as this evening’s little team meeting/pep rally demonstrated — the news couldn’t possibly have come at a better time).

And I’ll have to throw the script we had been doing (a little piece called “Some Kind of Hero,” which I’m pretty damned proud of) out the window for now. But hell, we can always do that later. I’ll get my “Written and Directed by” credit another time.

This we can only do right now. And I’m positively ecstatic.

Okay, gotta run now. I’ve got a lot of calls to make...

Monday, April 04, 2005

Mixed News

Well, we just got the word: One of our teams has made it into the 48 Hour Film Project... but not both.

We are therefore making two films anyway.

I won’t lie — it’s a little disappointing not to have two teams eligible for the competition (and maybe even more so in that it’s the team I’m directing that didn’t make it). But there are some positives in all of this.

After all, we’ve already got our teams assembled (well, in principle, anyway). And since the single biggest obstacle to making these things (well, once you get off your ass and start) is scheduling shoots, I see no reason not to take advantage of this ready-made opportunity. What this does do for us is open up the possibilities for the second film, freeing us from the restrictions of the competition. Hell, we can start writing now. We can edit, add music, tweak effects later.

The first film team benefits in that we can allocate our strongest pre- and postproduction resources to them on the competition weekend. And the second benefits by having a more relaxed shooting schedule — we can shoot over two full days without worrying about leaving time for a mad-scramble edit.

And we’ll own the second film lock, stock, and barrel. No restrictions.

I need to sit down with Nello (the Tohubohu director who’s still in the competition) and our respective producers to hammer out exactly what our schedule will be, but I’m still optimistic. And incidentally, if anyone out there still wants to get involved, drop me a line.