Instant Moviemaking

Ten Things about a Big Black Hat

 

Do you suppose someone would buy this hat? I did; I like it. The video says why. It's an excellent costume for Halloween and other festive moments.

Verizon Treo 700w Triumphs in 48-Hour Filmmaking Challenge

    One of the most grueling international challenges for filmmakers is the 48-Hour Film Project (www.48hourfilm.com). The contest dares movie makers to complete a movie on assignment in a single weekend and submit the results to judges and to a live audience almost immediately.
    This weekend, one filmmaker relied on a Verizon Treo 700w to complete a film after his camera broke down just hours before the start of the contest. “It’s tough enough to complete a film in just two days,”said filmmaker Bill Dyszel, “but the idea that you’d try do something that difficult with a phone instead of a camera seems insane.”
    Insane or not, Dyszel took up the assignment in the Portland, Maine edition of the 48-Hour Film Project and did, indeed, finish the assigned film. To top that off, his film arrived first among the 14 filmmaking teams entered in the contest, despite the fact that all the other teams used conventional digital video equipment.
    How did he feel about shooting a movie on a Treo rather than a conventional video camera? “You’d be surprised; it really works,” he said, noting that once you learn to make a virtue of the limitations of the Treo as a moviemaking device, there’s definitely the potential to create all kinds of entertainment. “It’s not something you’d do every day,” he said, “but there are some unique advantages. A Treo is much less conspicuous than a video camera, so you can shoot without having people notice you. It’s also much faster to transfer footage from a memory card on the Treo than to capture footage from a typical video camera. Treo moviemaking is probably its own film genre because of its unique set of assets and limitations, but you can definitely do lots of entertaining things with Treo movies.”

Audience Interaction

One thing I'm struck by at this year's 48 Film Project (all cities) is the absence of audience interaction by the filmmakers. I definiely plan to work the audience at tonight's NYC screening, because . . . well, because I always do.

The best reason to "work the crowd" before the screening is because it's fun. Most people who attend an event like the 48 Hour Film Project have come expecting a different kind of experience, so when they encounter a filmmaker handing out jellybeans or silly flyers, they're willing to join in the game, so it's fun for everyone.

There's also an energy that develops when audience members interact with filmmakers as well as with each other, rather than just sitting there in their own private cocoon, isolated from everyone else. When filmmakers interact with the audience before the show, audience members feel like they're part of the show. That gives them a sense of investment in the success of the evening, which creates a self-fullfilling expectation of success.

One of the many great things about the 48 Hour Film Project is that it's about much more than watching films. It's really a meta-event, an event whose reason for being arises from the way the event creates itself. It's a sense of community and creativity that excites everyone involved and stimulates the imaginations of filmmakers and audiences alike.

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The 48 Hour Film Project: Boston

Link: The 48 Hour Film Project: Boston.

Character:  G. Goforth, Competitive Eating Contestant

Prop:  Bicycle Pump

Line of Dialogue:  "That's why I don't trust her anymore."

I dig the line - iambic pentameter, even! I wish it weren't raining. Makes exterior location shooting tough, especially alone. Shadows aren't a problem, though.

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YOU can be a zombie, too!

Link: youcanbeinournextmovie.

Mindsplinters Films is doing another first. We will have all our horror fans in our next movie if they want to be. Our film in production now, DAY OF THE DYING LIVING is a zombie flick with LOTS of zombies. In fact, “We are looking to set a new world record for zombies in a horror film.” We have zombies on the set but we wanted EVERYONE to be able to play a zombie in our film. So here is your chance! (Check the Mindsplinters Films website for details.)

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Caught Red Handed!

Well, the eagle-eyed authorities caught up with me today. It turns out that I didn’t actually have the required character, F. Clark, Cartographer, appear on the screen in my Philadelphia 48-Hour Film project, so the glamour of being the winner of the Best Musical Score is no more. I’ve had to resign in disgrace!

What can I say? It’s nobody’s fault but mine. Being an honorable one-man moviemaker, I stood myself at attention and ripped the stripes off my own uniform shirt while drums rolled. Who rolled the drums, I don’t know. 

I can only say that I’m glad I have at least three more opportunities to get it right. That’s what checklists are for. (“Prop. Check. Dialog. Check. Character ON SCREEN, DUMMY! Check!)

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Podcast - post Philly Film Fest

Here's podcast number three in the series. Burned out but still babbling. Download instant_movie_blog_podcast_v01e03_03apr2006.mp3 .

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About HEROES’ JOURNEY, (The Big, Short Movie)

I usually do absurdly small movies, i.e. one man movie musicals. Now I’m planning an absurdly large movie, that is to say a movie with an insanely large cast, drawn from all over the place. I
don’t actually know what it’s about yet, but I know that I want to draw people from the various 48-Hour Film projects I’ve entered this year (Philadelphia, Boston, New York, Washington), both film teams and audience.

How will it work? Beats me. At first, I want to get out takes from the Philly 48 Hour projects, then get some goofy footage of audience members. Then I’ll figure out a musical treatment, edit it all into one big movie musical mashup and screen it on August 14 in a happening on the banks of the Hudson.

Drop a note to bigmovie (at) pcstudio.com if you’re interested, and also watch this blog, and I’ll keep you posted on what’s happening. –Bill Dyszel

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Finished in Philly

I’m starting to realize how tiring long-distance 48-hour filmmaking can be. I’ve driven three round-trips between New York and Philadelphia this week for the 48-Hour Film Project; one trip on Friday for the kickoff, a second on Sunday for the dropoff and a third on Tuesday for the screening. Driving to Philly is normally no big deal, but when you make a 48-Hour film between two of those three trips, you’re driving on less sleep than you would under normal circumstances. So the drives become pretty exhausting on top of the sleep loss from the films. On the other hand, in past years I’ve done out-of-town 48-Hour Films in which I stayed in a local hotel to make the film. On the whole, I’m still better off making the film in my own environment because all my resources are available. When I do a film away from home, anything I didn’t bring I probably can’t get.
   

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All in all the Philadelphia trip was great. The filmmakers there are wonderful, friendly and very, very talented. It’s hard to keep track of who did what in an event where your own film is being screened.

My own film seemed to go over well. I drew the Mockumentary genre, so I couldn’t use the operatic approach I usually use, singing all text. A mockumentary really needs some spoken segments. For some reason I got fixed on a Satanic theme, so I offered the Devil’s first music video and an interview with Satan. It may have been a mistake to get stuck on a preconceived idea, which I did with the Satan motif, but once I was working on it, there was no going back. (The Devil made me do it!) Besides, once I realized that the required line of dialogue, “First put your feet like this,” was a perfect musical match for most settings of Ave Maria, I was hooked. I couldn’t resist the idea of having Satan sing Ave Maria.

As I’ve done more and more 48-Hour Films I’ve learned to embrace the random elements more and more. If I take the time to find the music in the required line of dialog, I start to discover story elements and character traits that I wouldn’t have thought of if I’d just tried to churn something up “in my head.” It’s really a gift to get a chance to ditch your preconceived ideas and leap into something unknown.

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Heroes' Journey - THE BIG ONE

This August 14 at 8PM, a movie will premiere in New York featuring  . . . .YOU!

If you want, that is. It'll be the premiere of a short but large movie called HEROES JOURNEY, the story of . . . well, the story of a movie with a whole lot of people in it. I'll be recruiting and even filming people from all over the place, including audiences and filmmaking teams at the 48 Hour Film projects that I attend, than somehow mash them all into a single, unbelieveable film. And the screening will be unbelieveable! I'm still working out the details, but keep watching this blog for developments.

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