Franke and I (with Steve and Ian joining) dropped into Asheville Pizza and Brewing last night for the 7:00 screening of Group C. There were about 13 films and it was interesting to see the variety of stories and styles. Plus we got to see friends in some of the other films. I can honestly say there was only one other film besides ours that I really like and thought was clever (the pot smoking musical “Van(dammit)”). Most of filmmakers took the requirements a little too seriously or too randomly. There had to be an umbrella. There had to be a line of dialogue that was “That’s not the way I heard it.” There had to a character named Vic or Vicki Putterman who’s an environmentalist … so some of the films were really heavy on the whole “we are destroying the Earth” theme. Ugh. Some of the films were just plain bad and other started out pretty good just to fizzle at the end. The films are supposed to be 4-7 minutes and most folks took advantage of the full 7 … which sometimes wasn’t the best idea. I feel like ours did the best with the usage of time and story. After the screening we voted by ballot for three of the films as “Audience Favorite.” The first two were easy, but that last one was hard to choose. When Franke and I were standing outside getting ready to head to the cars, a fella came up and said our film was the best. That was rockin’! The awards ceremony is next Monday … so we’ll see if we win anything.

Wow. Working on the 48 Hour Film Project this weekend was quite an experience.

Friday Night:
We had a meeting on Friday afternoon just to touch base and kinda get some ideas for other actors and locations we had access to. At 7:00 p.m., Eric (the Team Leader/Writer/Director) went and did the blind drawing for our genre of film. We ended up with “Buddy Film.” He called me with his idea and I lined up being able to shoot at the theater on Saturday during the day. By Midnight he had e-mailed a copy of the script (“Immortal Longings”) to everyone.

Saturday:
The team arrived at the theater at 8:00 a.m. and we started shooting. The movie is supposed to be 4-7 minutes long and we had a script that was nine pages long. It took us from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. to shoot 8-1/2 pages … and that was with no breaks. We stayed on task that entire time. Then it was off to Candler to film David and I with some horses for the end of the film. We wrapped that up about 9:00 p.m and the the crew went off to hand the footage to the editor.

Sunday:
From what I understand, they spent all day editing and adding music to the film and got it turned back in before the deadline with just 10 minutes to spare. The movie clocks in at 6 minutes and 50 seconds. So we came in just barely under the time limit. David had us over last night for a screening of the finished film. It was really interesting to see what made it in and what didn’t. I am disappointed that we lost the “horses into the sunset” ending … but Eric was saying they were gonna make a copy of the film that is the entire script. Sweet. We will have an “Extended Director’s Cut” of the movie.

I can really say that I have a new respect for “film” acting.

If you happen to be around Asheville this week, the movie will be screening on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at Asheville Pizza and Brewing on Merrimon Ave. We are the Stellar Media Team that is in Group C. Tickets are only on sale 1/2 hours beforehand so get there early.

Showtimes:
Tuesday, July 24 at 10:00 p.m.
Wednesday, July 25 at 7:00 p.m.
Thursday, July 26 at 4:00 p.m.

And lastly, here are a couple of photos of David and I doing some really questionable theater for the film (Thanks, Dylan!).

David as “Queen” and I as “King”

David as “Hare” and I as “Tortoise”