Hello!

This month in London there is the London Sci-Fi film festival, and in hour of that there is the 48 hour film competition. Make a five minute movie in 48 hours.

Crazily enough, I have a group, a crew, lots of ideas (although not firm as they give us a line of dialogue, a prop and genre the day of )

Anyone ever done this sort of thing before? Give us any tips, tricks, things to avoid?

Wanna help if we want like and end of the world scenerio with random people screaming in front of famous landmarks

I'm so friggin' excited to start shooting tomorrow!

yay! I have absolutely no help to offer, but yays! have fun.

Sure, I'll go scream in front of landmarks - why not?!

'course, on this side of the pond, I'll probably get trussed up and carried off for inciting 'concern' ... (and it'd be kind of hard to film, for you)

Have fun!

Cut out every few frames to give the film a twitchy look. Maybe have hands/ claws drag people into shadows at zero hour?

the Severed Arm could totally drag someone! It's fingers are all blibbly, like the fingers of Widget.

I am so excited now it's tomorrow! TOMORROW!

My ex (now a professional editor and producer) did one of these 48-hour competitions a few years ago, based out of the Ritzy in Brixton, and he won one of the categories (it wasn't a sci-fi thing, but their entry was!)

Both from my memories and from asking him, I'd say:

Try and get as much prepared beforehand as possible. The best films (and also the ones that won, although that's not the point) were ones that had been 80% written and prepared beforehand, with the 20% tweaking to fit in with the locations and other things the competition specified.

Storyboard so you don't forget stuff.

Plan for losing the light and for rain, etc.

Don't worry about stuff that you can't help without serious professional equipment (eg: the sound is always going to be a bit dodgy on outside broadcasts unless you have some serious kit)

Map out the time so you have, eg, one day filming and one day post-production, but you'll probably end up doing bits of both on both days.

Don't be afraid of making your special effects really really cheesy.

Have fun jerry-rigging (they took over my living room and made a working camera dolly out of a wheeled speaker stand, three bookshelves taken off the wall, and a lot of gaffer tape).

Relax and have a ball. Don't worry if it all goes tits-up. Make advantages out of stuff you don't have time to do. (Eg: they had two graphic artists involved, but didn't have any production time left to do proper titles, so they handwrote them - badly - on bits of scrap paper torn out of an exercise pad and filmed it, all in about five minutes, and it ended up looking deliberate!)

Have fun. I hope there are zombies involved!

hive!

*tacklehugs and chains to the wall*

how are you?

Hey fion! I'm fine, but I have to get back to work now!

good luck getting out of those chains...

Oh, yes, another thing before I run - the right music can cover a multitude of sins in the post-production stage.

Hive! *pouncehugs*

other than that I don't have a clue.

I think we had most of those angles covered *phew*
we don't have a script, but we pretty much have ideas for what we hope is every sub genre of sci fi.

i just scored the professional recording equipment from work and last night secured filming at a pub in London

And my house is the other official shooting location

we don't really have anyone to do graphics, so we may have to resort to hand held placards

this is going to be so friggin cool!

Arterial spray is an essential element to any good film.

i just want zombies. i'm probably jsut going to be a walk on. we actually have a professional actress! she is in a west end show and everything!

we are discovering we all have amazing contacts who all like zombies.

In addition to the advice from Hive, there's a couple of things that I have found essential. Hell, there's a hell of alot.

When inside, bounce your lighting rigs off the walls. If you direct it, even if it's just a few angle poise lamps, straight at your actors you'll wash them out. Reflected light disperses and works better, especially for video. And don't forget to white out the video cameras before each take.

Even if you have no script as such, just a bunch of ideas, try and and cobble together a shooting script. It'll help you keep the thing under control. And keep a note of which take works. You don't want to have to sort through the ones ruined by giggling, aircraft, flushing toilets, anti gravity fields etc when editing. Just a simple clipboard on which you can make the note would be good.

Plan for your dinner break. Really, it is very very very important that you guys take a structured break, that you know when it's coming and how long it'll last. It'll stop stroppiness later.

When filming is taking place, do be quiet. It'd be terrible if the great blood squirting decapitation scene was ruined by 'oh, that's awesome!' every two seconds.

That said, be prepared to soundtrack. You're unlikely to be able to do any ADR and will have to rely on location sound which without a controled set is going to be ropey. Check out your library for Sound Effect CD's that you can use (There's a bunch online too with some googling). If you're using music, add it in post. If you have the time then foleying some effects would be fun. Like punching or chopping up cabbages.


Appoint an Assistant Director. Let the Director concentrate on what's happening on screen, but the AD should be pushing for the job to be done.

After each take, get a call from the Camera Op, the Sound Op. and any Continuity Person as to if it's Good or NG (No Good). If one says it's NG, then do the take again.

It's obvious, but I've known it ignored, but shoot all that happens in one location before moving to the next. You don't want to be travelling backwards and forwards all the time.

Remember, you're performing for the camera, not your friends around it. Make sure you have a monitor feed too.

er

there's so much....



Don't overdose on the red bull to early. Save some.


Stay sober!


Good luck!

um

i'm not sure what all of that meant.
but okay!

none of us have ever done this before we're going with simple!

we really don't want to win, we just wanna finish

What sort of editing things do you have?

'cause most editing things have titles.

(or you can be me and have Production Suite with Live Type and have awesome titles...)

Main things:
Keep extraneous people and noises and things out of your shots
Make sure you've got all your equipment (full batteries, tripod, etc)
Make sure the shot looks good before recording (light levels, "antler rule", etc.)
Keep track of stuff
(There's more, but I haven't got my notes)

I've never done this particular thing, but this is my fifth year in Media/T.V. Studio/etc. classes and I have had to shoot various scenes and things. Interviews, door scenes, game shows, etc.

Shooting outside a studio is hard. In a busy Manhattan restaurant is even harder.Gah.

Just one camera? Mics? Whatcha got?

we have three hand held camcorder things
2 tripods
fostex digital multitracker with mike and instrument channel (ampy thing)

no lights but we will rent tomorrow

I have nothing to say that is helpful except that is so cool! Good luck!

i don't know how to make the mic work!

i have the mixer thing wokring on internal mic, but don't know how to deal with external! and its got switches! eep!