The Greensboro 48 Hour Film project took place about a month ago on the weekend of June 12th. For those who don’t know, the 48 Hour Film Project is a world-wide competition in which teams of writers, directors, actors and animators make a film from scratch in 48 hours (www.48hourfilm.com).
There are strict rules that each team must adhere to. Additionally, there are several key elements predetermined by the Commission of 48 such as the main character, prop and one line of dialogue that is required to be included in all the films. At competition kickoff, each team draws from a hat the genre in which their film must emulate. From there, each team disperses to write the script, shoot the action, and develop the soundtrack, graphics and visual effects. It is without question a wild time.
Our team, 10 lb. Hammer picked silent film, which I was pretty excited about. To me, a silent film is a great canvas for experimenting with purely visual storytelling and not relying on dialogue to explain to the audience what is happening. It is also a chance to draw attention to sound design and the remarkably hard discipline that it is. Like visual design, sound design is best when it goes unnoticed, but the observer still finds that they are emotionally moved even though they may not be able to pinpoint why.
I’m proud to announce that our film made it into the 48 Best of which included only 1/3 of the qualifying submissions. Among ours was a handful of truly masterful films and it was inspiring to see the [underrepresented] talent we live amongst. If only 48 happened more than once a year.
For this year’s film my task was strictly graphics including any print graphics needed as props in addition to opening and ending titles. Going into it, I thought it would be a breeze and I’d have plenty of time to jump into the VFX seat and help out the rest of the post crew. This was not the case.
With the recent acquisition of Adobe CS5 my workflow has experienced more than a few hiccups. For one, working in HD, particularly HDV/HDTV, is hardly ever a picnic. After using the ram preview a couple of times, I inevitably need to restart After Effects because of its delayed response time or it has completely frozen. I’ve been most offended when using 3rd party plugins such as Optical Flares from Video Copilot. Plugins like this worked great using CS3, but CS5 seems so outrageously fickle and unstable, I cross my fingers every time I set out to do something with a deadline.
So coming back to 48, my work finished rendering just under the gun. I suppose it wouldn’t be 48 without the typical scramble to render and export, but it astonished me that such sophisticated machinery and software could seem so archaic in its use.
Aside from the technical difficulties and the lessons learned, I’m thrilled with the work I produced. I see a great shift in my thinking and execution regarding design, motion graphics and my work as a whole. My process is starting to take shape and I am beginning to recognize why I make the decisions I do. I don’t claim to be an expert on the technicalities of my choice applications, such that I’m not savvy with motion tracking and imported camera data, however, my strength lies in the visual execution and the role it plays as a part of the whole. The most successful design is that which you don’t notice but still remains impactful.
Here is a link to 10 lb. Hammer’s 2010 48 Hour Film Project film.
Hi Janis,
Loved the short and your work on it. Im so glad to see you doing stuff like this and that like the rest of us you strugle through the Technical difficulties!! Also was very pleased to see some silent film again reminded me of making one at the Farm. I will definatly be keeping you in mind for any graphic works I may have!
Keep up the good work.
Cam.