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.