48 Hour Film Project II
I had to do this. At this moment I am blogging about a blogger blogging about our 48 Hour Film Project. Tara Sue Grubb is here with her laptop and her webcam (I see your webcam and raise you an NEC VERSA LitePad Tablet PC!)
She's interviewing our producer and assistant producer. One of her questions was "How has new and digital technology helped you as a filmmaker?" I sit quietly and gloat. :) Afterall it would be rude to inturrupt.
We ran into her because we are filming this part at the historical Revolution Mill in Greensboro,thus fufilling our Greensboro landmark requirement. Tara Sue and Ross are regular people about the old mill and little at the mill misses their attention.
We rap at the mill just before 5pm Saturday. The last tape is taken to our editor. Sara and I have our first meal since we started. I am taken home and Sara heads back to the editor's. She has two major tasks left to fulfil. First she must help with the rough cut, turning two hours of footage into a single short coherent story. Second she must keep the rest of the wildly curious and creative team away from our editor so he can work his magic. This is a harder job then it sounds even in the wee hours of the morning. Any hard feelings that may have been created in the night can hopefully be washed away over a beer at the finish line Sunday evening.
Editing was a chore, precious time was lost composing the origional '80's score. When I arrive at 6:30 they were watching the finished project for the first time. Three minutes in there is a glitch. Everyone freezes except for the editor who says "Oh yeah", makes and adjustment,and starts again. Playback was flawless, so he begins the process of dumping it down to dv tape. Halfway through his software autosaves. We must start over, on the dumpdown. The second one goes well, until halfway through the credits. Time was so close it was decited to create the second copy and hope it goes better. We were lucky...
It's 15 minutes till the deadline. Just moments before, Sara and I made the mad dash to New york Pizza to drop our entry off. We are not the last to arrive...
The mood is jovial, but the tensions are high. Sitting next to me is a guy with an Imac...they were behind enough he brought his computer here with him. It was running on uPS power while it was rendering. He had to plug it in here to burn his project to disk. The room is packed.
They just called time...everyone is looking at the door wondering if anyone has missed the deadline. Only 16 of 22 teams made it to the end. 2 minutes after the deadline another entry runs in too late to compete, but made it before the second deadline of midnight. Hers will at least be shown on Tuesday night. Now all that is left is to unwind. The guy with the Imac is unhappy. His rendering went poorly.
Woody Cavenaugh signing off live From New York Pizza. There is a wireless signal here...
