THE DAY OF GIVING.

The Day of Giving.

This was an odd project for us.  Every year we participate in the always fun 48 Hour Film Project.  The 48HFP is exactly what it sounds like.  It is a competition in which its participants have to write, shoot, and edit a short film within the 48 hour time frame.  There are a few rules that go along with the competition (as with any), but the big ones are the required elements.  Every group must include three elements that all teams have in common and one that is random to each.  The three elements that every group has in common are character, line of dialogue, and prop.  After those are assigned each team draws a genre from a hat.  For more information on the rules visit www.48hourfilm.com

The elements for our project were: 

Character:  Scott or Scarlet Johnston, Storyteller.

Prop:  Earrings.

Line of Dialogue:  "I was just thinking the same thing."

Genre:  Holiday Film.

From my own perspective, we were quite bummed out with our genre.  We were prepared for almost any genre, but Holiday really threw us for a loop.  This is the third time I have lead a team into the project and the fourth that I have participated.  I think that I spent the week or two leading up to the competition really set on unleashing my inner Rod Serling and doing a Sci-Fi piece in the vein of my all time favorite show, The Twilight Zone.  When faced with Holiday Film as our genre I immediately tried to shoehorn it into a Sci-Fi type project.  Did it work?  You be the judge.  I like it.  It's not necessarily our finest hour, but I definitely stand by it.

So, the production... We spent an inordinate amount of time coming up with our story and script.  Usually we knock it out pretty quickly on Friday night, get some sleep and start shooting Saturday morning.  We didn't wrap up writing until the early hours of Saturday, got a couple hours of sleep, and proceeded to get all of the things we needed for the shoot.  Then we made the long haul to Taneytown, MD (about 45 minutes outside of Baltimore).  We went to a friend's family ranch and set out to the woods to shoot our project.  By that time we were getting pretty far behind on our schedule.  Then the weather started acting crazy.  We got rained on quite a bit, dealt with massive humidity, and fought bugs, ticks, and all of the other awesome stuff in the woods.  All in all only about an hour was spent shooting before we lost daylight all together.  Fun moments from the woods included seeing Josh dressed in a full suit and tie standing in a forest, seeing E "kill" both Megan and Curtis (Capt. Tom, nice Kirk impersonation) not getting any ticks (at least on me), and being driven out in the back of a pick up truck.

Post-production took place at Towson University.  Travis Holden hosted us in the editing suites for the remainder of the competition.  Matt Riggieri, with the assistance of Travis, edited the movie together while Kevin Alban and Derek Dias recorded the score in the sound studio.  The other major project going on during all of this was the special effects being helmed by Michelle Lawless (soon to be Wiezorek!).  Despite having a pretty crazy shoot Curtis still had to pick up one shot on Sunday morning with E at some local woods, which we should have used in the first place.

Unlike other years Curtis and I shared the director and cinematographer role.  It had its benefits and disadvantages, but ultimately I think it worked out.  

The success of this film can definitely be attributed to the ridiculous amount of help that all parties involved contributed.  Needing two cameras, a green screen, a location almost two hours away, and an original score was not something I could have pulled together by myself.  I would like to thank all involved.

The Day of Giving won awards for Best Editing and Runner-Up for Best Special Effects.

Thanks and Enjoy.

Chris

The Day Of Giving from C83 Productions on Vimeo.