Merry Christmas!

This Place: 48HFP International Shootout

About three weeks ago we bit the bullet decided to participate in the International Shootout, little did I know it would turn out into an all out, balls to the wall, weekend of hella rad film making. Of course we got the coldest weekend of the winter so far, and a snow storm to boot. Everyone's toes froze on more than one occasion, but luckily we had a crew of superhumans, so we were totally good...

We were given some tough criteria to work with; namely creating a film about the 'end of the world'. The last thing we wanted was to make another version of Halcyon, so were constructed a Harold and Maude esq drama interspersed with little character vignettes.

Antonio saving souls like it's his day job:

Connor getting pissed that his girlfriend doesn't dig his dinner of ramen and broccoli:

Kylie creeping out Rhiannon in liberty park:

Katy the stoic scientist acting up:

Rhiannon searching through the beautiful LaCaille:

Richard and Rhiannon discussing the end of the world like it actually means something:

Behind the scenes the film was far less glossy. It was cold as hell and we suffered through every moment of the outdoor scenes. The shooting went predictably over schedule giving us two intense 16 hour days. We invited arrest with our priest declaiming on the very edge of church property, we invaded LaCaille while they were trying to serve brunch, we drove Sarah to the edge of sanity by filling her dorm room with loud louts until the wee hours, and then accidentally leaving her fridge turned off. But despite all the chaos the film made it to fedex monday night, and we collectively passed out.

Here's our first scene, with bazooka like camera pointed at the temple. I don't know why terrorists just pretend to be filmmakers, they'd have a lot more success.

And here's our last scene on Sunday night, where Lonny let me handle the camera even though I was wearing a sketchy cardigan.

To wrap the shoot up with a nice neat bow, today I returned a wallet that Connor Provenzano found while getting ambient tone in Liberty park. The girl who lost it was a quiet Iraqi who had fled from her town with her family when it had become too dangerous. The wallet had been stolen from her bag at SLCC, and for some reason I cannot fathom, the $800 she had just withdrawn was still in it. The world is a strange place sometimes.

Halcyon NAB Cut

Back in May we (The Dada Factory) competed in the 48 Hour Film Project, a yearly competition that brings out the lurking filmmakers across the globe on one weekend to write, shoot and edit a short film. With more than 70 cities participating, and literally thousands of filmmakers on the ground, it's stunning to think of the combined energy taking place during that weekend.

Here in Salt Lake the full 48 teams participated, from a two man crew, to a massive team of industry professionals, the competition was stiff. To our surprise we beat out the 36 teams that made it in on time, and won 'Best Film'. We were about as surprised as everyone else.

While the prizes sucked (a copy of crappy screenwriting software), two cool things came out of the event:

First, our film will screen in the national competition Filmapolooza, at NAB in Las Vegas. Here our film goes up against the other city winners to possibly win a sweet camera, and a chance to screen at the Cannes Film Festival in France. Here's the all new re-edited version that will screen in the festival.

Second, we have been invited to compete in the 48 Hour Film Project International Shootout, and event that pits the city winners against each other to make yet another 48 hour film. This will be going on next weekend, December 4-7th. Keep an eye out on our Vimeo account to see our submission.