“Best Of” and Baltimore

Just a couple of quick updates, folks.

First of all, there’s an article in today’s Post about the real-life “Tim Tate, gay glass sculptor extraordinaire.” Just thought it might be of interest to some of you.

At the end of the article, they mention a (free) “Best Of the 48HFP DC” screening at the Warehouse Theater on June 22 at 7pm. Haven’t heard anything directly about this myself, but if it’s true (it’s on their schedule, but no mention of price), it’ll certainly be worth a look-see.

And I also received word that, contrary to earlier reports, the 48 Hour Film Project will in fact be heading up to the Charm City. Unfortunately, it’s over the weekend of July 14–16th, during which I will be at a long-planned family wedding. But far be it from me to demand that my participation be the deciding factor. If you’re interested in joining in, let us know and we’ll see if we’ve got enough interest to field a team.

(And on a housekeeping note, I’d also like to collect short bios and head shots for both our website and DVD editions of our work. So if you think you’re likely to be so featured (use your judgment — though if you’ve delivered a line on screen or had “director,” “producer,” or “writer” appear next to your name, it’s probably a good bet), you may want to pass along your best photos and brief bio paragraphs. Otherwise, we’ll pick out the most unflattering screen capture and just make up some crap about you.)

We All Like To Have Friends...

Hmm... there’s always a rub somewhere.

On the one hand, I want to promote our MySpace site as much as possible. On the other, I kind of think it’s something akin to cheating to accept the continual stream of thinly disguised porn sites that keep making friend requests. Sure, they’d get our numbers up, but I’m not that obsessed with shameless self-promotion.

So for now, I think I’m going to have to amend my earlier post. Yeah, we’re acccepting just about anyone who wants to join. But there is a human being looking at the actual profiles of our requestors; if all I’m seeing is a bunch of provocative poses and links to your webcam, then sorry, but I’m going to have to say no.

(And for my personal MySpace page, I’m probably going to have to actually have some idea who you are.)

Staying (Somewhat) Current

In our continuing effort to keep up with what the kids are doing nowadays, Tohubohu Productions has gone ahead and set up a MySpace account. We may end up cross-posting blog entries there, uploading videos, and what have you, but for starters, we’d definitely like to see if we can get a few “friends.”

So if you’ve got a MySpace account (and if not, it’s easy to sign up), you can go to Tohubohu’s profile and send us a friend request. We’re not picky, so unless there’s something freakishly abhorrent about you, we’ll accept your request; we like to be as inclusive as possible.

(And on a personal note, I’ve also got my own profile page up, and I’m also desperate for the personal validation that only a whoppingly huge list of friends can bring. I’m also fairly lenient in my friend-accepting practices — though probably just a bit more discriminating. But probably not much, come to think of it.)

We’ll keep you posted on further developments!

The Shoe Drops

Unfortunately, “Close Quarters” did not garner a slot in this year’s “Best of the 48 Hour Film Project” screening. Disappointing, yes, but hardly a reflection on all of the hard work that went into this production. Thanks go out to everyone who made this a remarkable experience, and we look forward to working with you again in the near future!

And finally, for those of you who’ve been waiting anxiously, the movie is now available for on-line viewing. The large-size version is ready now, and the smaller versions should be available in the near future.

So give it a look, and let us know what you think!

Who Knew? Well, Somebody Did

Turns out that the required character for D.C.’s 48 Hour Film Project is a real person: Tim Tate, Gay Glass Sculptor Extraordinaire.

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. And here we were criticizing that selection as being an unrealistic caricature rather than a credible character.

To our credit, we did change it to Tina Tate (as permitted by the contest), and I don’t think we were harmed by our lack of knowledge in the creative process.

To our detriment (or, rather, to the credit of our competitors, which amounts to the same thing), it looks like 2004 contest winner Jon Gann (“Signs”) actually knows the guy. They’re next-door neighbors. Can’t help thinking that might have given them a bit of a head start (nice when you can use a piece of the artist’s actual work — which you happen to have at home).

In all seriousness, I’m not griping — more power to ’em. This contest isn’t meant to start from a “level playing field” for anyone. Our team may not have had actual glass scluptures, but we did have an unfairly creative and dedicated bunch of contributors.

So there.

Tonight’s the Big Night

Remember, tonight’s the big theatrical premiere of “Close Quarters.” As of this writing, tickets are still available.

It’s at the AFI Silver Theatre in Silver Spring, at 9:30 p.m. The theater’s at 8633 Colesville Road (at the intersection of Colesville Road and Georgia Avenue), and there’s parking available for only $3.00 behind the Lee Building (pretty much at that same intersection).

We’ll try to get the movie up online at some point on our website, but it’ll be a while — we’ve got some technical hurdles to overcome with the 24fps shooting speed versus the 30fps speed of the video. For those of you more technically inclined, we shot in widescreen 24p (23.98fps) with a basic 3:2 pulldown (rather than the advanced 2:3:3:2 pulldown), and (in the interests of speed) edited in 30i (29.97fps); for the archival copy we’ll want to do a reverse telecine to restore the 24p footage, and reedit at that frame rate (and in 16:9 widescreen).

I think I can safely assume that that explanation meant absolutely nothing to 98 percent of you, so just trust me when I say that tonight’s premiere is the single best way to see this movie for the foreseeable future.

See you there!

Tohubohu’s Latest: “Close Quarters”

I have to say, we’ve learned a lot every time we’ve done this, and this weekend probably resulted in our smoothest work yet. Not that it wasn’t without some significant bumps. We drew “Drama” — a tough category for a group whose talents certainly fall more into the comedic vein (though you can feel free to debate our success in that arena). Still, as Drama was a new category this year, it was somewhat rewarding to be one of the “inaugural groups” to give it a go.

On the flip side, we’d lost our writer mere days before. So I, our producer (and my wife) Pam, and a few of our actors all hammered out our script, finally winding up around 4:00 a.m.

A quick catnap (not to mention a much-needed shower) later and we were up and shooting bright and early Saturday morning. We hadn’t had time to work out a detailed production schedule the night before (and several of our actors — being in other shows or rehearsals — had time restrictions), so Pam ordered shots on the fly. A last-minute discovery was that a construction crew was working a few doors down from our location, but at that point it was too late to move — we just scheduled our outdoor shots for the lunch break and hoped the noise wouldn’t carry inside.

Our editor was working on-site, grabbing tapes (and the very detailed notes from our script supervisor) and putting together rough cuts of scenes right there. We finally wrapped around 8:00 p.m. — the earliest we’ve ever finished one of these shoots — and I took over shot-logging and capture so our editor could grab a quick rest. But by about midnight, we had all of our footage captured and a rough cut of everything but two complicated scenes put together.

Unfortunately, we also discovered that we had some story problems. We ran the rough cut past a couple of test audiences (okay, past some coworkers I was able to shanghai to watch it), and there was a lot about the character relationships that wasn’t coming through. So we (i.e., Pam) hammered out a quick prologue scene and sent her, our D.P., and a couple of actors out to shoot it while the editor and I kept at the cutting. Our “second unit” finished shooting by 2:00, and we folded the new scene in, color-corrected and scored the film, rendered a letterboxed version (an agonizingly slow process), and dumped it out to tape.

At 7:28 p.m. — just two minutes before the final deadline — I ran through the doors of the Warehouse Theater, two copies of Tohubohu’s official entry, “Close Quarters,” in hand. Which will screen this Friday night, May 12, at the AFI Silver Theatre, at 9:30 p.m. (tickets are available via their website, hint, hint).

All in all, an extraordinary weekend, a thrilling experience, and something I’m likely to keep doing for as long as I possibly can. It’s just great to have a chance to do this — and most importantly, to have a finished product to show for it.

Thanks all for participating, and congratulations to everyone who gave this a go!