Having arisen from my glorious 13 hour slumber, the cleansing satisfaction of accomplishing another hectic 48 hours of filmmaking has me a tad nostalgic. From my crew’s humble mid-teen beginnings way back in 2006, our yearly progression has been a fascinating one.
Each year introduces some new faces (and sends off others), but the core players, motion graphics artist Scotty Wilson, former film student Amer Haviskadic, IT engineering student Paul Williams and go-nowhere movie blogger yours truly, have gone through all six excruciating, adventurous, suicide-contemplating, enthralling years.
In 2006, Scotty came to us with the prospect of entering this obscure filmmaking competition. We were young film-lovers, but aside from some delightfully lame minute-long skits, we had never created a short film before. As one of the youngest teams that entered that year (the forth year running), it was a blessing to have drawn the “Puppet” genre from the bingo wheel they had at the time. Using Scotty’s buggy handheld crank-powered mini-camera, a call-out to a couple of our Glenfield College mates and Final Cut Amateur, we created Battle of the Child‘s Playthings.
That short went on to play at the Civic (because all the heats premiered there), made the V48hours 2006 DVD (because every short did), and is at the top of the DVD menu list (it was alphabetically organized). Unfortunately, we were beaten out of our first heat by Porn: The Musical. But despite some terribly tacky jokes, a cheap Family Guy cut-away and a lack of children in a film starring children, there’s an undeniable charm to our very first 48 hours entry.
The following year, we were given “Fairy Tale.” We tried our hand at a serious take on Red Riding Hood, simply named Red (like I’ve said before, shorter is cooler). It wasn’t particularly good, with dull dialog, lukewarm acting and an abrupt ending making the entire short completely forgettable.
2008 was even worse. Given the genre “Drama,” turning it into “Crime-Drama,” and mutating it into “Crime-Drama-Comedy,” a big group of us came up with CSINCISVU, a convoluted mess of unfunny TV show references and lame jokes. The entire thing was an abortion, one that we killed off on the Saturday afternoon. Using our free dinner coupons, we wept in our delicious Nandos chicken, beaten. We never heard from Friedberg and Seltzer again.
A new year, a new hope. With Amer and Scotty having recently achieved film-graduate status, we were determined to prove ourselves as competent filmmakers. Assigned with “Realtime” film, we created our best entry into the competition thus far.
Yeah, there’s still obvious problems. Some cuts break the real time realness, my impression of Dylan Moran is horrendous, the screen is washed with a massive tinge of seasick green and overall, it’s slightly dull. Nevertheless, SoundshackFM had a solid beginning, middle and end along with a couple of decent gags. It was a solid effort, more so than many other entries of that year. Achieving audience second pick in our heat and a top four overall ranking by one of the judges didn’t help us however, as we still didn’t make the national final (no short from our heat did). Despite that, SoundshackFM was a definite milestone, emphasizing a massive lift in filmmaking quality.
Last year’s 48 hours, we were pumped. We had the gear, we had the personnel, we had the experience. This was the year we would break past the first heat. At least, that’s what we thought. Having drawn Biopic, This Is Fred was a story of an innocent porno novelist who fell in love with a mousy sex toy storeowner. Visually, the movie was stunning in all its HD goodness. However, the script was utter shit, a fact I’m not ashamed to admit considering I wrote it. Eventually, we tacked on a completely different ending with out-of-frame subtitles for a cheap laugh.
This year, we welcomed two more talented film graduates to the team, Gabriel Lunte and Daniel Baikie. With a crew of 12 people, we collectively voted on a team name.
If you think that logo’s awesome, imagine what the runner-up name Flaming Dikshit would’ve looked like. With horror as our genre, a number of us retreated to Scotty’s for the Friday night planning session. Ideas were thrown, rejected, thrown again, rejected again, thrown a third time, accepted, rejected until eventually we came up with a story that we were all moderately happy with.
Three hours of sleep later, we started shooting. Aside from a particular bathroom shot and a 2-on-2 debate over a particular scene, Saturday went pretty smoothly. That’s never a reassuring feeling.
With 24 hours before the deadline, we sacrificed an hour for shower, food and beer. If our six year experience in this competition has taught us anything, it’s that you should ALWAYS sacrifice an hour for shower, food and beer. No more, no less. We NEVER waste time. Well, OK, maybe sometimes, but only if it’s this hilarious:
Six of us retreated to the editor’s cave of solitude on the Saturday night. With a total of 20 hours of pure editing (and an hour of sleep), Scotty, Amer, Gabe and Mitchell worked their magic. With me and Paul on emergency foley duty, it became increasingly frustrating to watch four editors growing in fatigue, wishing to take a break, while I’m sidelined due to an inability to use an iMac. Easily the most gruelling day for us, along with most of the other teams.
With the render button pressed at 5:42pm, we had the nervous wait of death, dreading the “f**k you” pop-up of doom. By 6:24pm, it was complete. With no time (and no point) in watching the entire film to check for errors, we slapped the short onto the flash drive and headed for Aotea Square. We reached the finished line with 20 minutes to spare. After a parade of celebratory hi-5s, we watched the always-entertaining flurry of laptop-bound filmmakers dashing to meet the deadline. Immensely satisfied with another short film achievement, we marched down Queen Street for some victorious BK. ‘Cause we’re classy like that.
Ant Timpson’s frantic filmmaking competition has evolved from a quiet quirky comp to an annual kiwi celebration of chaotic creativity, and my crew have grown with it. Starting from an innocent puppet short (which is still our personal favourite entry), this annual film squad has grown from bright-eyed bunch of hopefuls to a commendable filmmaking team.
However, it is our main man Scotty Wilson, the one who got us involved with the competition, who has taken the biggest strides. As the heart of our team, he has gone from an awkward teen with an annoying passion for drawing to a charismatic filmmaker with an amazing vision.
But don’t tell him I told you that. I’ll flat-out deny it.
