Rialto 48 Hours reflection!

With every passing year that I have entered the Rialto 48 Hour Film Competition, which is now a grand total of Two times, I have learnt many lessons. Some for the good, and many a lesson learnt from the bad. But that’s more or less what these times are for. Friendly competition that can further our experiences in the field of filmmaking. Using a system of trial and error I believe that in the next years competition we can perform something even better. Stepping our game up every time.

In our very first year of study at S.I.T (2013), our class decided to enter in a team (RAW). No one in our team had ever been involved with the Rialto 48 Hour Film Competition before. So as expected we were ill prepared. When the text came in just after 7pm everyone was in a frazzle. By trying to come up with a GREAT story our plot became lost and confusing. We had differed away from our assigned genre slightly and no one was on the same page. Progressing forward from these foundations was even more difficult, in the sense it’s hard to film a story that you don’t really understand in the first place. In simple terms, our staring had a domino effect around the team’s function for the remainder of the weekend. Disappointingly, We did not end up producing the film that we wanted.

Going forward from our previous experience aided majority of our decisions this year. (2014).  My classmate Brogan and I decided at the close of last year, that we would like to take a project with our sole control. So there would be a definite sense of leadership and direction. As a result she produced, and I ended up directing the short film under the team name “Umbrella Fortress”. The two of us spent many hours agonizing over things to get us ready and organized for the weekend. Our aim was to have a small crew with specific jobs (in the end we only brought along Kimberly-sound and Matt- gaffer).  An easy flowing weekend schedule so crew could have breaks and decent rest, actors secured, food sorted. And lastly we had drawn up a variation of 5-6 different scripts that could be manipulated into several genres.

We were prepared; there is no doubt about that.

As a result, when we received the message around 7pm on Friday 4^th of April, there were only three people in the room working on the scripting process. Brogan, Kimberly and I, (opposed to confusing room of 10-13 people all pitching in ideas). This system worked. It was far easier for people to pitch ideas, listen and discuss appropriately. Having the preparations and foundation in place made for a great start in our hectic weekend. Because we ran through the script fairly quickly, Brogan, Kim and I ended up leaving relatively early (11Pm) and getting a nice big sleep before shooting commenced at 9am the following morning.

I personally had prepared a quick rough shot list of what I wanted for the shoot, meanwhile Brogan had been organizing last minute props and making sure there was plenty of food around to suffice.

Overall the shots were powered through surprisingly quickly. Only getting caught up over one particular shot from our “dolly”. Which is merely an acquired shopping trolley, I found difficulty to keep the shot leveled due to the unsteady carpet of the floor I was rolling it over. Aside from that particular shot we ran through the action fairly quickly.

We even stopped partway through the day for a massive lunch break (longer than scheduled for) partly due to the fact we had been so quick. Shooting was completed at 8pm Saturday night, which is a stark contrast to the year before. At this time I estimate we were only halfway, perhaps ¾ done with our shoot. We still had a night sequence to put together and on top of that I had to keep resending the crew out to do pick ups of important details that they had missed. A process that continually delayed our progress further and further behind.

I ended up staying until 12:30am the Saturday night putting together a rough edit of “Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar”, while Brogan edited up our intro sequence and credits. Then heading home for another large rest, not returning to the edit suite until 9am. The amount of sleep received this year was a major blessing. We did not change our sleeping patterns for the sake of the competition and were very well rested compared to others. In 2013 I would say I received an estimate of 4 hours sleep the entire weekend. From the Friday morning until leaving for home Sunday night.

Our editing system was far improved from the year before. Brogan and I had found that our editor from the year before wasn’t “up to scratch”, in the sense that unfortunately they were not fast enough to cope with the hectic rush and pressure of editing. With that in mind we decided to elect myself as the editor, I feel comfortable and confident in majority of my editing skills. And I’m quick enough to power through it. Though one major error occurred in this process. Halfway through creating the rough, the computer completely froze. As a result we waited 30mins –an hour to see if the computer would fix itself. It didn’t. As a result I disappointingly lost half of the rough edit and had to spend an extra Hour re-doing what had been deleted.

In the end the edit was graded, and finished exporting around 5.45pm on the Sunday afternoon. Leaving us 1-hour spare of the deadline, only having to send the Wrap Up Forms.

In conclusion I found our efforts paid off having the vast amount of preparation that we did, a definite improvement from the year before. Even though our film did not end up a “blockbuster” and wasn’t particularly well received by the judges. I still feel proud of the product that we created and I am impressed with the effort and atmosphere that all contributed towards it.