IT WILL BE HERE SOONER THAN YOU THINK...

Get ready for Extremefilmmaker's 11th Annual 48 Hour Film Festival!

The screening is coming up September 2008 at the Hollywood Arclight Cinemas.

Submissions will be due by August 31st, 2008.

Interested in making a film? CLICK HERE to find out everything you need to know!

My First Two Adventures In Making A 48 Hour Film (Part Two)

by William Kallay

One of the first people I ran into in the upstairs lobby of the screening room was Keith. He’s a big, muscular guy who would've made a perfect samurai killer in my film. He’s one of the nicest guys in the world and we spoke for a while about the festival. I came to learn it’s a big job for Keith, Mark and John, along with some volunteers, to put on this festival. There’s a lot of planning, judging of the films and eventual presentation of those few chosen for screening. And these guys don’t charge an entry fee. Pretty cool and generous, considering where those films are shown.

The theater was large, but not Grauman’s Chinese Theatre large. We found our seats up towards the back of the auditorium. Then people started filing in. Lots of people. It became so crowded that some people had to stand. After Mark, John and Keith made their introductions, the lights faded and the films started.

The first thing I noticed and I think most will agree with me, is the quality of the films entered. There are a great group of filmmakers who enter the 48 Hour Film Festival competition. One of my favorite filmmakers is the team of Trey Stokes and Amy Earhart. At this particular screening, they showed their “Untitled Russian Film.” The audience was laughing hard, as was I. The night only became better with even more fine short films.

Then my film, “Kotou (Old Sword)” came up on the screen. The first thing I noticed here was that my sound mix on my “studio” logo was too loud! That’s one of the hazards of making a film in 48 hours. You don’t have the luxury of re-dubbing dialogue or making a well balanced sound mix. Technically, the audience is going to hear or see some goofs here and there, try as we may to make things perfect as possible. I’m sure that my filmmaking peers in the 48 Hour Film Festival will agree with me. Perfection, unless your 48 Hour Film is planned perfectly (they never are), is not an option.

“Kotou” was preceded by comedies. Sweat began to bubble on my forehead and my body went limp in my seat. Serious music came up, and then a stark title card faded up to set up the story: “The year is 1598 in Japan.” Now, the film isn’t the most serious film in the world, and it’s not a comedy, either, but there is a mood to this picture.

A guy in the row in front of me started laughing. Then there was a smattering of other laughs in the audience. It was contagious.

“Crap, they think it’s a comedy!” I thought to myself. “They’re going to laugh through whole movie, and they’re not supposed to!”

At this point, I pretty much slid onto the floor of the theater. I’m was going to be laughed right out of the theatre. But once the titles were over and our colorful opening scene of bright greens, reds and blacks faded up on the big screen, the audience collectively said, “Ahhhhhh.” I had ‘em hooked.

I’ve written this article, upon the request from Keith, Mark and John, to illustrate my first experience of making a 48 Hour Film. I have to say that it’s one of the most wonderful and memorable experiences I’ve had in filmmaking. It’s not everyday that your film gets judged by an advisory panel of film industry veterans. It’s not everyday that your film gets chosen, then screened on a studio backlot in front of a standing-room only crowd of your peers, friends, family and total strangers. Nerve racking? Yes. Exhilarating? Yes. Worth doing? Absolutely.

What Keith, Mark and John have done is to provide a venue for filmmakers to showcase their talent. They’ve given a number of filmmakers, some of whom are working in the film industry in other job capacities, an opportunity to get their work seen by the public. And for that reason, to a degree, I’ve become a “member” of this motley crew of horror slash masters, puppet masters, chop-socky influenced karate buffs, digital cartoon makers and serious film directors. Yep, you heard it correctly. The 48 Hour Film Festival shows all types of films, no matter the genre.

This festival has also given me the opportunity to work with some fine actors, many of whom have been paid to work in feature films and television prior to meeting me. Without them, I couldn’t make these movies. And I must be doing something right, because many of those same actors are working on my fifth 48 Hour Film, provided the Advisory Board isn’t sick of my work, or that they think what I made was just a real turkey.

Much press is given by the media to other film festivals, where writers sometimes hype the hard grit that goes into low-budget films. But most of those low-budget films that are accepted into places like Sundance and Telluride have at least some money to spend on a production. In the 48 Hour Film Festival, it’s more than likely that most of us are paying for videotape, a few props and food for our actors and crew, and that’s about it. Nobody, and I’m speaking about my own epics, is paid. This is seat-of-your pants moviemaking, and I think that the cast and crew can get into the spirit. My payment to them, at the very least, is a thanks, an invite to screening and a DVD.

Critiques have come from some audience members about various aspects of some films, including my own. A film I made in 2003 called “The Samurai Returns” got such criticism. It wasn’t about the technical aspects of the film. We shot in what I thought was a quiet, secluded hilly area that looked like 16th century Japan. I didn’t notice until after we filmed that if listened you closely to the soundtrack, you could hear a birthday party going on in a house about a half-mile away! Cheap headphones. At the screening for this particular film, no one in the audience that night seemed to notice. What they noticed was the language in my film.

I decided to make right and cast Asian actors who could at least learn to speak Japanese for this follow-up to “Kotou.” That film was more or less done for fun, and to see if I could be accepted into the festival. But this time, I wanted to do it right. So I hired a firm to translate my dialogue into Japanese. I cast Asian actors from Chinese decent and Japanese decent. I thought I had my groove. In “Kotou,” as you may recall, no one batted an eyelash over us talking in gibberish. Once “The Samurai Returns” screening was over, a few people told me that my actors looked uncomfortable speaking Japanese. This came from both a Japanese man and a blonde haired woman who spoke Japanese. Mind you, these were friendly comments and not disparaging. I emphasized that I gave my actors a lot of credit for tackling such an assignment. Not everyone can learn Japanese in a week’s time. I came to realize pretty quickly that Japanese is a far more complex language than I thought!

Other critiques on other films in the festival have included questions like “What was that about?” “Is this thing over yet?” “The camerawork was kind of shoddy.” Making a film, almost any film, is hard work. Long hours and tedium are just two ingredients. Try doing one in 48 hours with camera set-ups, multiple locations, a few actors and the clock running. It is true that some of the films may lack finesse, but they more than make up in the spirit of just going out and making a film. The camerawork may not be on the level of Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC. The sound may sound like something from a home movie. The scriptwriting may be unrefined compared to something written by William Goldman. But with only 48 hours in which to make an 8-minute film, you’re not always going to see the slickest production on the screen. What matters that the films are made and completed. Like Mark has alluded to before the festival screenings begin, if you think you can do a better job, then the next festival is always coming up.

Many of these filmmakers that participate in the 48 Hour Film Festival have made some great and fun films. Some of my favorites have been Trey Stokes and Amy Earhardt’s films, including the brilliant “Untitled Russian Film” (2003) and a charming sleeper called “Fish Guys” (2003). Director Mark Nelsson made an absolutely hilarious short called “Molecule” (2004) with some impressive narration and digital effects. Lincoln Kupchak has made a number of slasher films for the festival in the spirit of those ‘80s films he has emulated. Founder Keith Matz made probably one of the best shorts in the festival’s history called “Coffee Monkee” (2003), in which he himself is digitally animated and laments over the life of being in a coffee house called “Ishmail’s.” 48 Hour vet Craig Kuehne made a very funny film called “Auditions” in 2003. Founders John Parenteau and Mark Kochinski blew me away with their freshman 48 Hour films, “Verite” and “One Last Time,” both from 2002. Craig Kuehne struck back with a sweet film called “Staged, Raged and Engaged,” which won a number of this festivals awards and commendations from the Advisory Board in 2004. And these mentions are just a smattering of a number of fine films that have been screened.

The 48 Hour Film Festival has grown so successful that it was moved to ArcLight Cinemas in Hollywood, perhaps one of the top places in town to see a movie. In fact, when my film “Green Tea” was chosen for screening in early 2004, I almost couldn’t buy tickets to see my own film because ArcLight told me they were sold out! Luckily, ArcLight moved the screening into a bigger theatre and added a second show that also was sold-out. That’s how much bigger and more popular this event has become.

So, I don’t know if I have shed any light on the 48 Hour Film Festival. And these are just a couple of my experiences with it. All I have to say now is that this fest has been a great place for me and other filmmakers to show their talent. And even if one of us gets that lucky break to make the next multi-million dollar Tom Cruise action flick, we owe it to guys like Mark, Keith and John and the Advisory Board members a debt of gratitude for helping us get there.

MELROSE MAC

THE ARCLIGHT CINEMAS

FILMTEES.COM

CELTX.COM

Interested in making a 48-Hour Film?

The rules are simple: Make a film, any film, in 48 Hours from the first frame shot to the final edit!