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YBP Employees Take On the 48 Hour Film Project
By Jeff McGlashan, Customer Service Bibliographer
I was part of an ambitious group of YBP employees who took part in the 48 Hour Film Project. For those of you unfamiliar with this project, it is a contest in which amateur filmmakers compete, attempting to make the best film in a 48 hour period. The contest started in Washington, D.C. a few years ago; now it happens in most of the fifty states and many countries in Europe.
On June 11th, the Friday night that started the 48 hours for the New Hampshire 2010 contest, all the filmmakers gathered at a preordained site. This turned out to be a comic book store in Manchester, N.H. Bill Cote (and his very pregnant wife) organized the New Hampshire 48 Hour Film Project for 2010. At around 6:10 Bill began to recite the general instructions. He provided us with useful tips, and gave warnings (e.g: contestants are advised not to use guns, and if the filmmakers choose to use guns, please do not film in public using guns unless you have previously informed the local police.) There was some knowing laughter at this warning, since one of the filmmakers present had made a film last year in which a character was killed by a gunshot to the head. Some people near us murmured about a more recent incident, alleged to have happened in a U.S. city, where someone was actually killed accidentally during a film shoot. (I doubted the truth of this story, since Mr. Cote would most likely have mentioned it in his warning if it had actually happened.)
Bill went on to explain that the 12 or so genres which would be randomly assigned had been placed in a hat, and representatives from the various film companies were to come forward when called and pick their genre. I was chosen to represent our film company, Marsyas Films. I pulled a small slip of paper out of the hat - it read "Horror". I thought, "Yuck." I didn't want to do a horror film. But the rest of the crew figured, despite our outwardly civilized appearance, we could make a go of it.
Then came the requirements. These requirements are included in addition to the genre, to further assure no one can cheat and make their film beforehand. These included: a character, a prop, and a line of dialogue, all of which had to be included in our film, or else it would be disqualified. For this year's New Hampshire contest the character was Dr. Clark (or Claire) Larson, Plastic Surgeon; the prop was a box, and the line of dialogue was, "I need to tell you something." Mr. Cote explained that the line of dialogue had to be spoken verbatim - even contractions could disqualify a film. A young man who'd received "Silent film" as a genre panicked, "What if you've got Silent film?!" "You'll just have to think about how to do that," Mr. Cote smiled, as about half the crowd shouted, "Subtitles!" Someone asked if there were any special type of box needed. "No, just a box," was the answer. Just before seven, Bill had us synchronize our watches, and reminded us that 48 hours later, the movie must be complete. We had to present a finished short film (no less than four minutes, no longer than seven) before 7:30 Sunday night.
By 7:01 Friday evening we were making phone calls in the parking lot, calling co-workers who were doing make-up and costumes, as well as the rest of the writers. As we drove the half-hour north to Concord, we were considering what to do. Both the other producers, Dave White and Marc Gelinas, are re-enactors as well as YBP employees, and they'd figured if we'd been given historical fiction as a genre we would have had an advantage. But their hopes were dashed by being required to have a plastic surgeon in the film. Unfortunately there are no records of plastic surgeons in 18th century New England, unless you count medical orderlies with saws. At least this helped put us in a horror frame of mind. I wanted to make it a spoof, as I figured doing it straight would make it much harder to pull off. But Dave and Marc argued that we should do it seriously, since that was the genre we'd been assigned.
In Concord we grabbed the rest of the crew and began discussing the story. Marc had an idea about two characters trapped in a room, with marauding zombies that are never shown trying to burst down the door. Dave asked how the audience would possibly accept that there were zombies without being able to see them. I favored a scene where a protagonist enters a room in which three zombies were motionless, apparently dormant, then their eyes suddenly open, and the protagonist backs slowly out of the room. Marc asked how we could lead up to that scene. Our voices were getting louder, we had to go outside the pizza restaurant we were sitting in, and continue the discussion in the parking lot. Marc's brother John said, "Let's put these two scenes together." Dave asked again, "How does the audience buy into what's going on before they see any zombies?" then a light bulb literally appeared in the air over Dave's head and he burst out with: "A radio announcement! An official sounding report warning people to stay in their homes because there's been some unspecified catastrophe!"
And with that outburst as momentum, as well as pizza and subs, we ran back to Marc's brother's house (fortuitously equipped with a very scary basement) and began to write out the script. By 1:30 a.m. the script was complete. We drove home to bed.
At 7:00 a.m. we arrived back at the scary basement house to begin filming. We scratched drafts of dialogue in notebooks, we drafted shot ideas and scenes in other notebooks. We argued about ways to shoot shots.
Dave had bought good film editing software, but his computer would not accept the files from our $1,000 camera. Marc brought his laptop, and we borrowed another editing program from a friend who became the consulting editor. Dave taught himself to use this software as filming continued around him. Marc was quickly falling into the role of director, with his brother John as assistant director. It was like watching an intellectual wrestling match that was nevertheless carried off in a gentlemanly fashion. They set the tone for the weekend by arguing passionately for their ideas, and then coming quickly to a decision, either by reaching agreement, or when one of them acceded his point in favor of keeping the work moving.
John and his friend Jeff became the principal actors - the two victims stuck in the basement room. They worked on their dialogue while Marc got the camera into position and we set up lights. (We learned that filming takes a lot of lighting, and that lights generate a lot of heat. And that if you're in a small basement room with lots of powerful lights, you don't need to provide fake sweat to make it look like the actors are exerting themselves! How wonderful!) I had a bit part as the one character named in the film, Dr. Clark Larson. My dramatic role consisted of sitting bloodied in the passenger seat of a car, holding a blood soaked rag to my neck. They said I was a natural at looking sickly and pale.
John, Marc's brother, was originally going to do the music and soundtrack, as he'd done music for movies previously, but his computer died the week before the project. So I brought a computer I'd gotten from a relative and, since John was in the basement sweating as his character slowly died on screen, I used the music program to create music and sound effects. By Saturday afternoon, I was running from the old computer to Marc's laptop, back and forth, supplying the music for scenes as the takes were being uploaded. The best take was chosen for a particular scene, and that scene then edited in the laptop. They would take the music from me, put it under a scene, and offer suggestions. Then I would run back and make more. The whole process of music production took about 14 hours.
Julie Marston and Cherie Prior, two more YBP bibliographers, provided make-up as well as catering (yummy cinnamon brownies and a loaf of bread and peanut butter go a long way when you're not sleeping!) Julie was able to do remarkably grotesque wounds using corn syrup, red food coloring, Mod Podge®, and a roll of toilet paper. I had no idea how freakish my neck wound appeared until later on, as I was driving home to sleep for a few hours Sunday morning and saw my face in the rearview mirror.
Robert Fitz, who works in Library Technical Services at YBP, played the scariest zombie, and all he asked for in lieu of payment was two pounds of raw meat! Cherie Prior filled in as a zombie, graciously allowing Julie to make her up as they'd made up the rest of us. And Dave White took a break from editing scenes to stand as a dormant zombie standing above a recently dispatched killed victim. (The victim was played by Marc's sister Alison, making this a true family, as well as YBP, effort.)
Toward Saturday evening the editing software suddenly began to misbehave. The consulting editor, Bill Platt, who'd lent us the software, got off work at midnight. He'd previously let us know that we could call him if need be. I called at 11:30 to ask if he minded coming over before we collapsed in sobbing and rending of garments. He arrived shortly after midnight, did his magic with aplomb, said he was really impressed with how well Dave did the editing as a first timer, then left for bed at 3:30 in the morning, not even wanting to be thanked, or appear in the credits. And Bill even came back on Sunday, after church, and worked from 1:00 p.m. until 3:00 p.m. At that point, the film was complete, except for the credits.
At 3:45 Sunday afternoon, we were working on the credits. Half-way through typing in the credits, Dave, the editor, somehow got this typo text: Copn stuck (There is a way to make text stay in frame, motionless, while other text scrolls behind it, and Copn was appearing over the text all of the credits from that moment forward, though we didn't know this yet.)
The editor could not recall what he had been trying to type (I now suspect it was the "Consulting" of consulting editor). He kept trying to delete it, and the program seemed to only delete credits we needed. Finally in frustration, he got up from the computer and asked if someone else wanted to try before he started breaking things. Our voice actor, Sarah, volunteered; she was the best typist among us. As she continued typing, we were resigned to the fact that this mysterious typo would just be part of our credits. It was now about 5:10 p.m. The editor asked if anyone else wanted a drink, as he had to get out of the house for a moment, then went across the street to the drug store for a soda.
The director had announced that the last possible moment we could leave and expect to make it on time was 6:45. Sarah, typing quickly, had almost completed the credits, when suddenly, something happened, like a "boing!" on the screen, and the credits seemed to have all disappeared, as well as the music that went under them.
The director took over and frantically searched for the credits. At this point, The editor returned and asked, "How's it going?" No one wanted to see a grown man cry, so we just stared at him, as if we were zombies. It was 5:15.
The editor sat down and looked at the disaster. The film now ended with the second to last scene, but there was no music! We were wondering if we'd actually lost a chunk of the film. The director and the editor began to search patiently and see if they could find the missing scenes and music. They discovered all of it, scattered a distance down the timeline, as if someone had pressed the enter key 20 times. The editor dragged the missing clip of the last scene into place. He played it, and the eerie music that was supposed to be in the previous scene was now heard over the final scene!
As it was now 5:20, we were glad that we were on the first floor, which made jumping out of the windows less attractive than continuing to work on the film.
The editor searched and found the scattered credits. It was at this point that we discovered that Copn was not merely a random inclusion within the credits, but text that was running over all of the credits. The editor and Sarah suggested that we just live with it; it was now 5:35. The director argued that we should just delete all of the credits, thus erasing Copn, and he would start over. The editor and I agreed, as this might fix the problem. The director began to type very carefully, painstakingly attending to every button he pushed to be certain that whatever boinged wouldn't boing again. I've learned that the director can be very cool under pressure. I was gibbering like an immature goat on caffeine and the editor was yelling at the laptop, which did not seem intimidated in the least.
The director finished a pared down version of the credits and then the editor found the music to the last scene and dragged it back into place. It was now 6:10. We started viewing from just before the last scene. The remaining human sees the zombie in the kitchen and retreats to the basement. He places the boxes back, barricading himself in the little room. His pained face looks towards the camera, and the mysterious legend Copn appears on his forehead.
That had to be the least fun moment of this entire not-at-all fun part of Sunday evening.
The editor laughed at this point and suggested we claim that Copn was an ancient word signifying a state of horrified distraction. The director recommended that we find out where Copn was stored and see if we could erase it that way. We did, and finally succeeded in getting rid of it, but only after deleting all of the credits again.
Can you say "AAUUGHHHH!" and not in an, "I'm hungry for human brains" sort of way?
At this point the editor, recommended that we do a severely truncated version of the credits, not worrying about attribution, just saying thank you to everyone involved. Marc, our director, argued against this, saying he wanted to do it right. The editor reminded us that taking that chance could put us out of the competition. I pondered, and then told him I agreed with the director, that we should try and get it right. I figured that the real point of the contest was to get us to simply finish a film, and we ultimately weren't as concerned about winning as we were with completing the credits.
The editor nodded, and punched me square in the face, knocking me to the floor. (Okay, he didn't really do this, but I wouldn't have blamed him, when one considers that he worked late into the night every night for a week and a half to teach himself the other software, expensive film editing software that then refused to accept the footage from our camera, and then he learned this new software on-the-fly while doing the film -- his poise at this juncture was nothing short of remarkable.) We agreed on getting the credits in, come hell or . . . well, whatever. The director calmly re-typed the credits and we viewed the final scenes to see how they fit, and to make sure we came in under the time constraint.
The music was somehow pushed back, it no longer kicked in at the point when the corpse of John rises, basically crumbling the climactic effect of the film. Instead, the intense, driving beat doesn't kick in until the credits start. We decided to live with this. We began to burn the DVD. It was now 6:20. Knowing that the previous burn took 15 minutes, we planned to have me run with the initial copy and the paperwork, and then they would meet me in Manchester with the second, necessary copy. (We were in Concord at this time, so Manchester was half an hour south.) The DVD was done at 6:35. As the director started burning the second copy, the editor ran to the VCR to make sure it was in the correct format and could play. It did. While watching the opening of the film, we discovered that the establishing shot actually starts with John's character walking slowly, before breaking into a run (it accidentally included footage from before the action). This destroyed the illusion of urgency and panic essential to the action of the shot, oh well.
The second copy took only 5 minutes to burn. We viewed the first few seconds and then all ran to the editor's car. It was 6:40 as we zoomed to Manchester. At 7:15 we made it into the Comic Book Store. We were the only film crew in the store when we showed up. As we checked in, Dave, the editor asked Bill Cote, the head of the New Hampshire 48 Hour Film Project, how many of the teams had already turned in their films. Bill said we were the 13th out of 26. He expected the final five minutes - between 7:25 and 7:30 - would be a complete madhouse.
So, we made it! It was on time, and hopefully within the proscribed length. Not everything was correct, but if we fail next time, we'll certainly fail much better.
I'm barely conscious, but my hands are no longer hooves, and we can now say, however initially, that we are actual filmmakers. And, as Dave noted in the car on the way to Manchester, we have coined a new word: copn! Marc, the director, came up with a concise definition: copn (noun) an apparently serious malfunction that one later learns was actually quite easy to fix. Obviously, copn can also be used as a verb.
But what co-workers! What a great learning experience! And what will we do with all the left over peanut butter?
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