48 Hour Film Project roundup, Baltimore 2006

So I’ve written 2 postings about this past weekend, scrapped them, and started over. I think the best way to do this is to give y’all a blow by blow so you can experience the 48 hours in a condensed posting.

To give you background on the group, the name is The Knights of the B, and the team is comprised of a lot of the team leader/director’s family (think brothers, father, in-laws, etc). It is not my team. My role is just to be a cog in the wheel. The cog named Editor.

Friday- 8pm.
I get a call from the director. “We got Fantasy”. My reply “And you didn’t throw it back?”

8:30pm
I call my sister so we can brainstorm ideas. After that, I periodically check in with the director to relay my ideas.

9:30pm
My sister and I come up with a really good idea. I call the director and tell him. I later find out he didn’t understand the idea so it wasn’t relayed to the brainstorming team very consisely. Oh well.

11:00pm
I get a call from the Producer. Things are going all pell-mell in the writing. They haven’t locked down an idea. No more than 9 people are trying to write this thing. I had no idea it would be like that. None at all!9 writers = recipe for disaster. I pity the producer and head out to buy Wendy’s fries.


SATURDAY
2:00am
I finally get to sleep. Praise be to Allah.

4:00am
My alarm clock goes off. After shaking out of my sleep hazed stupor, I decide taking a shower loses to sleeping 30 more minutes.

4:45am
I drag my ass out of bed, get my stuff together and run out the door to the airport. I do of course stop for the all important iced Dunkin Donuts coffee. And it? Was glorious.

6:00am
Arrive at Manchester. At 7 I get on the plane. I do not sleep on the plane because, unfortunately, I’m wide awake. And no U2 in the cd-man.

8:30am
The Director’s dad meets me at the airport. We go off to what I thought was the first location, and then learn it’s the second location. Say wha?

10:00am
The crew is at the second location (local university) and I help dress the set. I really don’t know why, but filming doesn’t even start until 11am or so. I think actors were late. Basically, I’m sitting on the sidelines watching Men Do Things, like lay dolly track. At some point I take a nap.

11:00am
I’ve put calls into the Producer, who walks off the set, and a writer/associate producer, who doesn’t answer her phone. I also have to track down the lead actor’s phone number because, inexplicably, no one on set has it. How did I become a quasi-producer?

12noon
Sloppy Joes for lunch. My ass is dragging so much I can’t see straight. I think I try to nap again, but nothing happens. I curse thee Allah.

2:00pm
We only have 1 shot in the camera. 0_o
What can you say to that, really? The director, who has been freaking out for awhile, walks around, eyes not really seeing anything. This my friends is what we call Not A Good Sign.

3:00pm
Things are finally rolling. Numerous shots in the camera. I finally get P2 cards. Yay! Then I embarrass myself by thinking they’re not seeing my laptop, when all I had to do was push them in a little more. Duh.

3:10pm
I realize that damn, the notes being taken on set are not helpful. There needs to be a script supervisor, or at the very least SLATES. Slates are an editor’s best friend. And the script supervisor. Slates how I love thee! Let me count the ways.

4:00pm
We break location and I beg off to go to the director’s house to edit. What I do instead is shower, then power nap. I have to confess, I’m an excellent power napper.

5:30pm
I awaken from the divine power nap.

6:00pm
Edit like a maddog and assign scenes to the assistant editor. Except he has FCP 4.5 and it only takes in 1 channel of audio (when there are 4 on all of the clips) so I’ll have to do intense audio mixing anyway. Suck it.

SUNDAY
3:30am
I decide to shut down and catch some sleep, with the intent of waking up at 8am. 10 minutes later the power goes off. I praise be to the sleep deity (it’s not Orpheus, he was mortal, but who the hell is in charge of sleep?) that I got tired and shut everything off.

8:00am
Alarm goes off. I shut it off and shut my eyes again. Motivation has completely left my body. Never deny the narcotic effect of sleep. Or Snoozing.

10:00am
I drag my ass out of bed (couch) and get some coffee. The other editor wakes up. We start hacking away at the edit.

11:00am
I call the composer and ask for the impossible. Occasionally impossibles are delivered by .Mac. God bless the internet.

1:00pm
I suggest to the director that title cards are needed in between scenes since we have not shot our way out of or into scenes.

...

2:00pm
The edit’s coming together. Kind of. The director views parts of scenes and wants to see something happen other than what the writer wanted. Too tired and apathetic to argue otherwise, I do it. In hindsight, I think I should have fought for the writer’s version of the edit.

3:00pm
Still no title cards from the director. I get scans of the storyboards from the AP and send them along to the resident animator. Maybe he can make something happen. I’m glad I insisted they be scanned. Foresight is amazing!

4:00pm
No title cards and no credits. Grr.

5:00pm
Final sound mix is done. Title cards are done. Final credits are done (by someone who said the rendered quicktime would be 4 gigs. EXCUSE ME? And he didn’t know what title safe was. This coming from someone who “works with After FX all the time”. Uh. Yeah.)

5:15pm
I start the downconvert render. In a panic, I don’t think I have time to add any music under the title cards. Not that we had much to add regardless. I make one change in the order of the title cards which the director allows.

6:00pm
Rendering finishes. Downconverting HD to DV on a laptop is not advisable in pressure situations!

6:15pm
I begin cursing the camera that we’re supposed to output to. I restart my machine several times. The computer can’t see the camera or vice versa. I output a data file of the sequence and have the other editor burn a data-dvd since my computer has become ridiculously slow in doing so. I continue to struggle with the camera/computer issue. I trash preferences, switch firewire cables, unplug and replug to refresh the firewire bus. During one of these attempts, the computer thinks I have unplugged the 800 cable, which I have not. Shit hits the fan. I gauk blindly at my computer screen.

6:50pm
The director’s been with us for awhile. He’s annoyed that we can’t print to tape. So am I. But we have the DVD data disc, and that’s as good as it’s going to get. Now, theoretically, it’s not one of the approved formats for submission, but having assembled master screening tapes for DC, I know this will make the editor’s life easier. I push the director to accept the disc. They leave.

7:00pm
I wish I had a beer. Instead I think I showered. I can’t rightly recall at this point!

And that was that. Later on in the evening, the director, his brother and myself talk about the shoot. To describe the pervading feeling as “downtrodden” is the understatement of the century. We feel like we all failed. The only consolation I have is that the director said to me at one point “On Saturday, at 2pm, I was going to pull the plug if you weren’t there” which is a nice little ego boost, however, it made me regret not waking up earlier, fighting for the edits I should have, or getting more involved on set on Saturday. Le sigh.