Base14

I can’t recall the last time i went 65 straight hours without sleep… perhaps that’s because I’ve never done it before. But that’s precisely what it took to complete our entry, entitled Frozen, for the 1st Annual Savannah 48 Film Project, which took place this past weekend — from 7:30pm Friday to 7:30pm Sunday. And it was awesome.

Photos by Rhys Edouard Samaniego-Finch

It started back in June when I asked a few people I knew if they were interested in forming a team, and somehow we managed to recruit some of the best film students at SCAD to join up. Pretty soon we had a complete crew, a stellar location and some slick talent (a.k.a. actors). As part of the rules, each team draws a different genre which they must adapt to a character, prop and line of dialogue. As team leader it was my job to draw the genre, and as fate would have it, I picked “Film de Femme,” a name coined by the contest for a film featuring a strong female lead role.

The team met up and discussed story options, then made the hour-long trek to our base camp in South Carolina and hammered out a rough script over the night. At 4:30am we moved over to the shooting location, which featured an abandoned fort and sandy beach. We filmed all day long, and as editor, it was my job to continually trade the camera crew freshly recharged batteries for full data cards. From there I captured, organized and backed up all the footage, while editing new material as soon as it came in from the crew. This way, by the time we wrapped shooting at the end of Day One, I already had a rough cut in progress. There was still a lot of work to do, though, so after much the talent and crew had driven back to Savannah that night, the Director, Director of Photography, Producer and myself stayed up until 4:00am editing.

We only stopped because the call time for Day Two shooting was 5:30am, and back in Savannah. So after a long drive back at 4:30 in the morning, we set up camp in Crawford Square — the same place we shot Brian Paulson: Tree Dropper. Everyone on that crew had appeared in the movie at that point, except for me! So I found myself a part as “Banana Boy,” a silent super-nerd who’s seen sitting with the protagonist at the end of the film and sporting an odd banana-eating shtick. You really just have to see it.

We wrapped shooting by 10am Sunday morning and pushed through post-production for the rest of the day. After some turbulent issues with sound-mixing and down-conversion from our 1080p HD format to a disappointing 720p SD format, we were able to just barely get the film in minutes before the final deadline.

It was a terrific experience, and I must admit, the most fun I’ve ever had on a film set. Because of the selective nature and combined talent of the crew, plus the organic development of the movie, everyone got along terrifically and worked ever harder. The whole thing was almost reminiscent of the end of summer camp, after a whole week of bonding that leaves you thinking you’re all going to be friends forever. *tear*

Anyway, there’s still some more tweaks I personally want to make to the final version before posting it on YouTube. But look for it… eventually. Since there were so many people that worked on the project, we need to make sure everyone is satisfied before giving it a full Internet debut.

Overall, it was well worth the huge loss of sleep and homework time. Look for news on awards and honors after this weekend!