48 Hour Films
Derek wanted to do a sci-fi TV series so secret that he didn’t even know the story. “What about the 48 Hour Film Project?” Derek asked. “Are you doing that?” Yes, I nodded vigorously, wondering what the hell he was talking about.
A few Fridays ago I was having lunch with my friend Derek, producer of the upcoming “Supercapitalist” film (hey it’s a plug!), talking about movie ideas. I wanted to do a serious drama about civil rights that suddenly turns into a Bollywood dance film for no reason at all. Derek wanted to do a sci-fi TV series so secret that he didn’t even know the story. “What about the 48 Hour Film Project?” Derek asked. “Are you doing that?” Yes, I nodded vigorously, wondering what the hell he was talking about.
My friend Dr. G. Oogle told me the 48 Hour Film Project was a competition to write, direct, produce, act, and edit a film in 48 hours. The organizers give you a genre, prop, and line of dialogue on the spot and it’s go time. The finished movies are screened a week later in the Grand Cinema and you can win fine prizes like one of those snappy things they snap when they say, “Bollywood dance scene, take thirteen.”
One problem: the project started in six days and I was missing well, everyone. Damn it. I quickly called my intrepid editor, Zach Hines, and said, “Zach, HK Magazine pays shit.” We haggled about that for a while and finally agreed on doing the 48 Hour Film Project. Now we needed a team.
There are two basic strategies when it comes to assembling a team. I didn’t know either of them so I frantically called people and yelled,”helphelphelphelphephelphelphelp!” Ascribing to the he’s-so-pathetic-I-can’t-say-no school of thought, we guilt-tripped a great group and were off to the races.
Friday came and we drew the genre Fantasy, meaning that we had to make a film using fantasy elements like wizards and frost giants. We asked if we could interpret “fantasy” as “male fantasy” and screen two girls making out for 7 minutes. Apparently you can but that’s stuff’s already all over the internet already (who knew?). We settled on the concept of a Facebook genie granting a girl the power to find the Perfect Man, which, by odd coincidence, was the name of our film.
Zach and I stayed up all night writing the script and watching YouTube videos of girls making out for 7 minutes, then passed it along to the cast and crew. Being much more talented than we, they went about it precisely and professionally while Zach and I added value by working on our secret handshake (lots of snapping). I even got to act in one the scenes, which was the director’s equivalent of when a mom tells a stupid kid that he can grow up to be President.
