Thursday, August 18, 2011

Film: Some Kind of Sign

Script outline.
All great artists suffer for their art.  I guess that's why Team Film Antics keeps coming back for more.  The 48 Hour Film Project has descended upon San Jose for the fifth year, and Film Antics along with 30 other teams will push their creativity to write, produce, shoot, and edit a short film in 48 hours.  All for their art. That's 2 days!  2 days!!!

Manny & Raymund

The San Jose team is helmed by Paul Aspuria (Director), Raymund Aranda (Producer | Actor) aka The Debonair Rogue, Manny Barredo (Assistant Director), Juan Sotelo (Writer), James Davis (Actor), Dillon Lin (Sound), and Jenny Casey (Actress | Choreographer), and Cindy Ramos (vocals).  Paul, Manny and I arrived at Camera 3 in downtown San Jose with the other film makers to pick our genre.  Manny was given the honor of picking out of the tin can.  He jokingly commented that we would get Western/Musical...the one category we had been lucky to avoid (much to my relief) in the past.   My worst nightmare came true, as Manny revealed to Paul and I our genre...Western/Musical.  Nooooooooooo!!!

Nutrition of choice...
Juan concentrating.










James napping.
I had to shake it off...there was nothing I could do.  This was a challenge and Team Film Antics was not backing down.  So we headed off to James' loft and began to brainstorm and chow down on some Little Caesar's pepperoni pizza.  This was Juan's first 48 Hour experience, and while he hunkered down to write the script, James, Jenny and I went over wardrobe, got comfortable with each other, settled into our characters and tried to catch some shut eye.  In the mean time, Paul, Manny, and Dillon tested out the camera and audio equipment, and soon headed out to shoot B roll.

Dillon @ 3:00 a.m.
Juan finished the script just as Paul, Manny and Dillon came back from shooting B roll.  This would be the first time we would be shooting where there was very minimal dialogue...always a challenge for actors.  We had a couple of quick read thrus then headed out.  Cameras rolled at 1:30 a.m. and turned out to be a race to finish before the sun came up.  The sun won...we had only one shot left.  We shot the final scene Saturday night after recording Cindy's rendition of Ave Maria.  We decided to grab some grub at Flames before tackling the rest of the project.  We would be cutting it close to the deadline this time.
Jenny & James @ sunrise.


"Some Kind of Sign" premiered at the 48 Hour Film Project screening at Camera 12 in downtown San Jose on Thursday, August 18.  For those of you who weren't able to make it to the screening here is the video for your viewing pleasure.