I attended my first short-film screening in Honolulu’s Chinatown in 2008.  I was amazed at what the filmmakers did…how could they write, shoot and edit a 4-7 minute film in just a week?   I was intrigued by filmmaking and just like improv it progressed from, “I love that but could never do it,” to “I love that, maybe I could do it,” to “I love that, I NEED to see if I can do this.” 

Fate smiled upon me a month ago when I was asked to be part of a 48-hour Film Project team in our fair city.  The way it works is all teams are given the same character, line of dialog, and prop, and then each team picks a genre out of a hat (12 possible genres) and does a film.   Holy fuck, how do we write, shoot, and edit a film in ONLY 48 hours!?!?

And the answer is a lot of planning and teamwork.  We had several meetings before the start of the project to assign roles and responsibilities.  I offered my skillz as a writer and potential actor. The assembled group was all improvisers and friends of improvisers.  We all got along.  Our coordinator found an experienced cameraman (invaluable) and a composer.  No one bitched the entire time, we all had a function on set or in the film and jumped in and did what was required.  We encountered challenges, we overcame them.  It was awesome to be a part of it.   

We started the project at 5 PM on Friday.  I woke that Friday and was a little apprehensive, but not all that stressed.  It was a busy day at work, so that took my mind off what we were about to do.  I wasn’t really nervous since I had no context.  Like a really young baseball team making it to the World Series.   No reason to be nervous because they don’t know any better. 

And it was all new experiences.  I hadn’t acted in front of a camera since I was in 9th grade.  Other than improv I have no formal acting training.  Done a couple of scripted and improv Murder Mystery Dinner Theaters…nothing in front of a camera.  My goal was to be present and take it all in since you only get one first time.  

The writers assembled at my apartment at 5:15 pm and we waited for the call with our required items.  Call came around 7 pm and we started writing.  None of the three of us had written a script before.  How could we fail?  We planned to finish writing the script by midnight.  Turns out writing is writing.  I used the same process for this as I do for any other project….get ideas written down on big butcher board paper so everyone can see them and they aren’t forgotten, start assembling an outline, then fill it in with details.  Collaborative writing is so much easier.  

We finished at 11 pm and emailed it to the rest of the team who were all assembled at another location.  Got comments back from them, made adjustments.  We were off and running.  Hard time falling asleep Friday night.  Lots of thoughts and ideas running through my head and remember to pack the jam to take to the shoot (you’ll understand the importance when you see the film).  

We arrived on location at 8 am-ish.  I had never been there before and had no idea what it looked like…it was exactly what I had in my head as we wrote on Friday night.

Saturday was a blur.  On location…script review, edits, rewrites, start blocking… Cram coffee and breakfast down…Makeup…wardrobe…Mike we’re prepping to shoot the scenes you’re in…. ok we’re gonna start shooting…break for lunch…small script changes…would be better if he had a glass in his hand…how do we do this part?…Coke Zero x2…this is so much fun!…annnnd we’re done shooting….Laura’s off to edit.

When we wrapped shooting my job was essentially done.  It felt like 6 pm on Christmas Day.  All the presents were open.  Everyone’s tired.  Shit, I have to wait another year for this excitement and energy?  I want to do it again!

At dinner Saturday night, my body felt like it does after a strenuous 10-mile hike.  Tension from smiling for 10 hours, leaning forward, making sure I was on target, hitting my lines, wondering if it would all work.  It was fun and exhausting.  I fell asleep last night about a minute after my head hit the pillow.

Maybe I’ll start some sort of collaborative sketch writing effort to tide me over until the next time.  In addition to improv, I’ve confirmed my second addiction is writing, and found my third, filmmaking.