48 Hour Film Project -
Final Thoughts

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Wednesday night I picked up my nephew G.J. and we toodled ourselves over to the Witimore Auditorium to screen the Group B movies from the 48 Hour Film Project. Our film, Hunger from Hell was last on the playbill. In the Group A screening, Jay felt that the strongest movie ran last, so we hoped our placement was a comment by the judges.

As you would expect, there were a lot of pretty dreadful pieces. Mercifully, the audience knew they were never more than 8 minutes away from a reprieve. The sold-out crowd being Midwesterners, and keenly aware that those who made the show were probably at the show, at least clapped very politely no matter the quality.

Several of the shorts were superb. I particularly liked the romance Lactose Intolerant, which had some brilliant comic moments. It was shot at Serendipity ice-cream shop, a favorite haunt of one of my elite squad of readers.

Southside Story was about cops and zombies, and was very funny, although not like the quirky Lactose..

One entry that licked us all in just plain funniness was Putt-Putt Professional a mockumentary about a young man trying to break into professional mini-golf. One scene where a narrator talks about fitness while the central character puzzles over how to use one of those giant inflated balls is hilarious, worthy of Woody Allen (Allen is a despicable reprobate, but he is funny, or at least he was).

Finally, our feature was up. It began, and we watched, breath abated. G.J. was tensed up as we waited for the credits to end and the short to begin.

Unfortunately, the audio was pretty banged up. The score, which was good and fitting, blew out dialogue. The shots themselves, how the camera was framed, how the story was told visually, was by far the best of any of them, but the sound hiccups robbed the exceptional camera work of their impact.

There were laughs. People got the jokes, and enjoyed the humor we had included, but I felt they were distracted by the failed audio technicals.

After the screening Jay invited us to see the director's cut, so to speak. He had cleaned up most of the problems from the first half of the film, and we could see how much better it really was.

Sigh!

There are lessons to be derived, not the least is that funny sells. The Post Dispatch today released the audience favorites, and our film didn't make the cut. All those that I saw that did were comic pieces, regardless of genre. Another is to make sure your post production people are fresh enough to do the job. I know that Jay and Nathan are much better than the film that we saw, and it almost certainly was fatigue that dulled their edge.

All that said, the project was great fun. I met lots of new people, all of them top-notch. Should I get invited back onto the team next year, I'll certainly accept.

Tim McNabb

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