VIRB

Apparently you can. And I just took part in making one. But let me backtrack.

Shawn (or motke dapp if you will), Bobby and Mark asked if I would be interested in joining team Fighting With Forks for the Nashville 48 Hour Film Project -- maybe help with writing, still photography or even acting. I said "yes", knowing this sorts of opportunities don't come often in life, and that it would most likely be an amazing time.

If you're unaware of what the 48 Hour Film Project is, here's a quick synopsis. Teams compete, city to city, and internationally to create a 4 to 7 minute film in under 48 hours. If that weren't challenge enough, each team is given a random genre (comedy, western, historical/period, holiday film, drama, horror, thriller, etc); as well as a character name, a specific line and another add on such as a certain prop -- to eliminate the chance of any pre-filming or writing, and all music must be original or public domain.

Last Friday I drove down to Nashville to take part in all the excitement. Right after getting to Shawn's house, Mark, Shawn and I started to rattle around ideas for stories, while eating pizza. Sometime around 7:30pm Bobby texted with the genre (we got drama), the name (Rob Hatch), the prop - or in this case an occupation (Security Adviser), and line ("My brother had one just like that"). The entire team then arrived and we had a group brainstorm -- discussing drama's we enjoyed, themes we could employ, anything and everything under the sun. Anything from a Hollywood murder drama about a train-wreck film whose producers decide to kill (literally) the main actor to gain attention and sympathy and recoup their budget; to a conceptual piece on Pacifism; to a single shot cry-fest about a husband and wife waiting for terrible news.

Sometime around midnight we finalized on an idea and began writing furiously till around 4:30am. After a quiet 2 hour "sleep" we (Shawn and I, and Mark who lives next door to Shawn) we headed to Sonic for intestinal awakening and headed to our yet observed setting. An 70's ranch house in suburban Brentwood -- which turned out to be magical, and mostly because it was large, and had a pool. After seeing the setting we revised the script to more clearly represent and accentuate the house. We assigned roles and characters to our actors (of which I got a nice little role, and did my best not to embarrass the family name).

At 10am we began to film -- revised scripts and lines, drank water, sweated, consumed far too many pastries (well, I did at least, for the character), set up the camera and lights; moved the camera and lights and wrapped up final shooting around 10:00pm (and took another hour of clean up and packing).

A group of us (me, Shawn, Mark and Bobby) headed to the offices of ICG Link to begin the editing and scoring of the film (and by "us", I mean Bobby because he was the only one of us who knew Final Cut Pro). The editing, cutting, reviewing and finalizing of the film -- including the amazing score by John Marshall -- wrapped up at 6:30pm; a scant half hour before ALL the films had to be in the hands of the 48 Hour judging team (or whatever they were). We reviewed the final film -- and noticed an issue; about 10 seconds of black screen (which was not supposed to be there). Bobby quickly went to work while Shawn and I headed to turn in whatever we had -- hoping for a dramatic switch-a-roo moment. I entered a small cafe/bar at 6:57pm and turned in our paperwork (releases, legalese, and our "final" DVD).

And that's the story of how we made "Disconnect The Dots".

Sadly, I can't show you the final movie (yet) -- not until the final judging has taken place on August 5th (though, if you speak to me directly, I might see what I can do).

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