The theme question of the last week has been “how’d your 48 go?”. I might as well rehearse that answer here as well.

So the Hamilton 48 screenings went well from what I’ve heard. There were five screenings of six heats, I could only attend one heat thanks to the time-eater that is my job.

How’d our film fare? Well, there were speeches before the films. I didn’t know this and it certainly threw me off. A lot. I made some half arsed comments here and there, while the voice in the back of my head was screaming “the hell are you talking about?”. Horrible speech over, the tape rolls and then there’s a delay because I never rewound the tape so there’s this awkward wait as the tape rewinds. Oh and we went on first. I can’t write up enough about how much I hate going on first. The audience is still getting situated and its not until halfway through the film that people are in the right frame of mind to just go along with the ridiculousness of the story and the jokes. Or at least thats how I’d like to look at it. Seriously hate going on first.

So anyway, it played, I don’t remember much of the reactions like a suppressed bad memory and we’ll see how it goes from here. Judges came together over the weekend and made a list of their top 12 finalists. I don’t know any details on this, but I do know they’ve picked a winner and that it all wont be announced til next week. I thought the finalists would at least be announced this week, but nope. Next Tuesday we’ll find out who’s in the top 12 (and on the DVD) and the very next day will be the finals screening where the winners in whatever categories will be announced. But here’s hoping. I just hope we don’t go on first again.

12 oz. Mouse. That’s whats awesome.

Been an odd week of coincidences. Before the 48 weekend I got out my copy of No One Belongs Here More Than You, a book by the great Miranda July, which led me to rewatch her great film Me and You and Everyone We Know, which is also great. Some days pass and Spike Jonze mentions July in his Where The Wild Things Are blog, which is cool cause they’re both cool. The next day I stopped into JB Hifi to do the usual consumerism of buying things, but then I see the soundtrack to Me and You and Everyone We Know on display and on clearance for hella cheap at $3. Also great. I’m now just waiting for the next moment when she turns up to my door, in soaked clothes from the terrible winter weather and needing a place to crash. That’ll be awesome. Better than Great.

Why was this not pointed out to me earlier? Awesome…

So, 48 Hours is over. After a madcap weekend of filming and editing and hair pulling, I think we managed to make something… interesting. I was obviously too busy during the weekend to blog anything about our progress, though I wanted to on many occasions. And was too shattered afterwards and even yesterday to string together any coherent words. So now I’m writing this trying to reflect on a weekend I have very little memory about. I do remember drinking lots of energy drinks, accidentally sitting in a puddle of kerosene before lighting up a cigarette and various other strange activities…

The competition started off like normal, got our elements: a rock, Alex Puddle (an exaggerator), dialogue of “it doesn’t fit” and our genre was Alternate World. Brinstormed like crazy Friday night, got to work on props, costume and the such and filmed a bit on the same night.

What’s slightly different was that we did the bulk of our shooting on the Saturday. In previous years, we’d have gotten at least half our shooting done by the first night, but this time it was only a few shots for the opening and ending and that was it. A little different and a little terror inducing for me as it meant more time pressure.

Still, Saturday went by pretty well, got plenty of shots done in the morning for a montage, dialogue shooting done over the afternoon and evening and a fight sequence at night. Thinking about it, I’ve never shot many fight sequences and now I know I’m not a big fan of shooting them, at least, in a 48 Hours period. They take ages to do, plan and film the various actions and beats.

Saturday night was a near sleepless editing process for me. Lots of trying to get the pacing of scenes right, the timing of jokes set and the fight scene… fighty? I dunno, it all starts to get hazy about here. Sunday was set aside for pickup shots, narration (which we should have done the day before, whoops) and laying down of music and sound effects.

Sound is a factor we always overlooked in previous years. Well, not so much overlooked, cause we were always well aware of it. In our first year we had incredibly bunged mics and last year our sound tended to drop off at times, but this year, we were well prepared with a totally sweet microphone, but unfortunately not enough time to really get the levels perfect. The film still sounds great, but given an extra hour or two, we would have had a really tight sounding soundtrack.

Same thing with music, last year the process involved the music being scored side by side with the editing, which allowed both processes to work back and forth. This time, music was done in a separate location and with time going against us at this point, there was just not enough time to get the pacing of both to work in sync with each other. The music still works and works great, but I’m just so uppity about music that like sound, if given a few more hours, it would have been a totally sweet marriage of the two.

But in the end we got it all down, and laid back to tape with almost no drama… almost. Our titles were a bit of a rush job, so that wasn’t quite right either and I just realised we missed out on our Special Thanks card, so at least on here I must say big thanks to Jamie for the support and putting up with our crap all through her and Ben’s house, Bella for being an all around helpful elf and of course Mum and Dad for being supportive and all around awesome.

Going into the competition, I had the intention of making a film that was more serious than previous years and telling a simple story that didn’t get too ahead of itself. Of course, pulling Alternate World there were some story options to make it serious, but c’mon… you gotta have fun with a genre like that. So we went all out on the gags again this year and well, I’m not too sure what our final product really is like, its definitely something I’m sure we can all be proud of, but its just weird man… weird.

It’ll be screening tonight for the second set of Hamilton heats and not to sound arrogant, but there’s a lot of anticipation from others as to what our final film is like. Hilariously enough, I’m getting a lot of second hand information about people’s attitude to us. Prior to the competition, a guy came into my work and talking to my workmate, he was all… “That’s the Chris Tan! We have to beat him this weekend.” and at the hand-in, teams were wondering if we’d get it in on time and quite a lot were hoping we wouldn’t… it’s so flattering to be feared. We’re like the bogeymen of Hamilton 48s.

Actually, more disturbing is that apparently there’s a character in one of the 48 films that’s based on me. He even has the name Tan and bares quite the resemblance to me. Flattering… but very disturbing. I look forward to seeing which one that is.

Will this be our last 48? Probably not, I say that every year, but we definitely had a lot of fun making it again and I hope audiences enjoy our final product. I’m not even sure if I can make it to the screening tonight, but I at least look forward to the reception of “Hardwood Floors” online later tonight.

It’s been a long week and I can hardly think to blog anything right now. The countdown to the start of 48 Hours is just under 15 hours. In that time I’m gonna try and get a decent nights sleep for a change (not likely) and finish up some last minute 48 prep work. Mind you, the whole week has pretty much been 48 prepping.

My computer is cleaner than its been in a long time and ready to edit. My room is littered with camera gear blanking off tapes and charging batteries. Plenty more stuff over at Ben’s house as well. I’m too tired as it is right now and the competition hasn’t even started yet. Still, very much so looking forward to the madness and fun that it’ll no doubt be full of.

I should be able to blog a post just before heading into the competition and with a little luck, I’ll occasionally write something during the competition just to keep a log of the inevitable growing moss in my brain that is mad-tree.

Mad tree? Dear god it’s already started.

Last one. Promise. Please note this one was done all by myself, rushed and most importantly is NOT a Christopher Walken impersonation. I suck way too much to have even tried that.

Okay, this hurts me more than it hurts you. After this, there’ll be one last scene to upload and then I’ll stop. Promise.

More 48 Seconds retardation for you, this time the classic scene from Michael Mann’s Heat as played by the classic Sasha Nixon…

The first of our retarded butchering of classic movies for the 48 Seconds Mildy-Furious Filmmaking Competition. Will have at least three more up by the end of tomorrow. For now, enjoy the fun retardation of “V Untouchables”.