From July 13-15, 2018, I had the honor of working with Michelle Shadday's "Team Shenanigans" (originally Team Estrogen), for the third time.
The 48-Hour Film Project is a nation-wide festival in which teams of amateur film-makers write, film, and edit an entire 4-7 minute movie for submission - all within a single weekend. Not only is it a great experience with your friends and a lot of fun to put together, it is also a good opportunity to push yourself to complete a project and have a finished product. Afterwards, all teams who completed their projects participate in a film-screening at SIFF Uptown (for Seattle teams).
On Friday evening, each team pulls their category from a hat, and all teams receive items that the film must include: 1) a name and occupation of a character, 2) an object, and 3) a line of dialogue. The writers begin on the script as soon as possible, and (typically) by the next morning, the crew begins filming. Post production includes editing, sound effects, and music. By Sunday at 7:30pm sharp, all films must be submitted or they are out of the running.
Our team this year consisted of:
-Michelle Shadday (producer/actor)
-Sandra Geldenhuys-Scragg (director)
-Bilal Young (associate director)
-Chen Yu Hsu (associate photographer)
-Nicole Pouchet Skuba (screen writer)
-Christopher Chambers (actor/editor)
-Yvonne Velez (actor/editor)
-Natasha Clarette (actor)
-Colleen Kelly (makeup)
We unfortunately lost both our director of photography and editor shortly before the festival began, and thus several members of the cast had to step in to fill their shoes. This resulted in a rougher process than usual, and a true "48-Hour" experience for Chris and Yvonne, who both acted and edited.
Our category for the film was "Romance", which turned into a romantic comedy called "Speed Date". Nicole wrote a cute, punchy script depicting a rather ill-attended speed-dating event with two women and one man. Humorously, it is the two women who develop chemistry with each other, and leave the sole man alone with a glass of wine at the end.
As the composer for the score, I found a new challenge with this film. Since the script was essentially one long scene and dialogue sequence, I couldn't just write individual pieces of music. Nor could I write one long piece of music, because I wouldn't have the opportunity to view the movie until after it had already been submitted. I could only approximate the necessary material based on the script, and give it to the editors to add pieces in as they put the film together.
I attempted to solve this problem by creating a puzzle-piece score. I created several themes that could be looped, truncated, fit together, or layered in any number of combinations, hopefully without losing the interest of the audience:
1. Pizzicato string quartet intro
2. Bassoon addition (character theme)
3. Light percussion track (dates)
4. Pizzicato + percussion track
I made sure that each of these pieces had identical tempi, filters, reverb, and complementary instrumentation. In addition, I created two "romance" tracks that were meant to warm up the romantic moments of the film and add an extra layer of cheese. Finally, I created several short moments which could be used to punctuate the sillier actions in the film.
After finishing the film, I created a suite from these pieces for a full soundtrack:
(photograph taken by Chen Yu Hsu)
For more information on the 48 Hour Film Project, see the festival's website below:
No comments:
Post a Comment