VF48Hours 2020 Forum

Okay, more detailed feedback:

ELEMENTS: there has to be something in there that inspires story, as opposed to just "items/events that need to be included." This was the first year that I constantly lost track of what the elements were, because they were so forgettable. We ended up barely using them apart from split-screen, and just made the film we wanted to make, which brings me to...

ULTRA: Completely unnecessary adding the 4th wall break to the split screen, which would so obviously have been fine on its own that I'm just baffled as to how it got through. Also interesting in that "a split screen shot" feels like it would've been a technical element in the days of old. Would, again, prefer something that inspired story, as opposed to a technical hurdle - we didn't have any technical issues, but we were absolutely stumped coming up with something that used the Ultra elements and the regular elements at the core of the story. (In the end, again, we just made what we wanted to.)

GENRES: Amazing pack of genres, even if we didn't get one of the fun new ones. Aside from the weird double-up of Sci-Fi and Time Travel, one of the best collections of genres I've seen.

TIMING: not a problem for us as we were shooting at the height of summer and only had two people to wrangle.

WEATHER: we had thunderstorms but we mostly shot indoors anyway.

LAUNCH & HAND-IN: We were asleep for launch, as it was 2am for us, and handed in electronically, which went without a hitch.

OVERALL: Happy with what we made, but boy it was a mission getting there.

in reply to Andrew Todd:

ELEMENTS: there has to be something in there that inspires story, as opposed to just "items/events that need to be included." This was the first year that I constantly lost track of what the elements were, because they were so forgettable.

Yeah, I think that what nominal category the elements are (Sound, Physical, Technical, Action) is less important than what they offer to the film. If we stick with four elements, they I'd say make two of them somewhat technical hoops to have to jump through, and make the other two the kinds of things that might inspire story. And to be clear, I get that any element, a puddle or wind or whatever, can of course be used as a story motivator if you're clever enough. But looking at the four from this year, only one (the double-take) directly and necessarily relates to a character moment (and even then, it doesn't do much to inform character).

What I would like to see is something that is situationally specific enough to inspire story, but vague enough to be used and interpreted in a variety of ways. Something like "a misunderstanding", "a lie" or "an overreaction".

It wouldn't be the 48 Hour weekend without a few ups and downs.
For the second time I received the Musical/Dance genre, and for the second time I thought of ways to quietly exit the competition, before doubling down on an idea my wife said not to do :p

Thankfully, the team loved the idea, got completely bought into it, and for the first time started planning out a one-shot movie. Really stoked with how well it all turned out, and can't wait to see what people think.

Loved the elements this year, as I usually feel having a line of dialogue ends up feeling a little too forced or, if you watch a few of the year's movies, a tad repetitive and distracting. Wind, laughter, overhead shot, double-take, are all perfectly subtle enough to be used without distraction. Love it.

rip focus had a great weekend.

We were initially taken back by our genre - stumped on how we had somehow missed a bunch of bizarre ones and ended up with a genre which was basically the same as what we got 2 years ago. That being said, the fact that we had done a time travel movie 2 years ago gave us the motive to get creative with 'How can we make a film with the same genre, but completely different tone' and we ended up with an idea that was making us all laugh a lot, so we went for it.

The elements ended up coming to our script pretty naturally, we never felt like we were cramming them into the story. It concerned me a little at first - feeling that maybe we weren't using them 'creatively' enough because of how easily they fitted in, but that concern disappeared pretty quick, I think the elements can be both used well while not standing out, making it less of a "48hours" film and more of just a regular short film/sketch.

We don't qualify for Ultra until next year, but during the announcements at the bar in ChCh I think I found myself less motivated to do it next year after seeing what those teams were going to have to endure - but my mind could change on that, I have a year to think it over now I suppose.

Overall a decent challenge for our team this year and I was very happy with their efforts.
A week before the competition I came down with a pretty nasty cough, I didn't think too much of it as it was winter and everyone seemed to be getting colds. I had some improvement on Saturday, but on Sunday it went from a bad cough to full-on chest pain - an hour after the comp ended I was in after-hours being told I had pneumonia over the weekend - yikes! I'm stoked I had such a supportive group who were able to get things done without me, it's nice to know you can go take a rest and trust that your teammates have your back.

Heats begin tonight and I'm excited to see another 9 rounds of ChCh talent. Bring it on!

in reply to Joel_Tempero:

the fact that we had done a time travel movie 2 years ago gave us the motive to get creative with 'How can we make a film with the same genre, but completely different tone'

TBALC had something similar with Rom Com back in the day, getting it 2 or 3 times (depending on how you count it), and it's definitely a choice you make to view it positively as an extra challenge: "How do we honour the genre, but do something totally different to what we did last time?" And given that the brainstorming process usually kicks up a bunch of potential good ideas that don't get used, there's always much more fertile ground to explore in any given genre.

We don't qualify for Ultra until next year

Didn't they change the rules this year so that any team that's been a city finalist before is now eligible? Oh well, whatever the case you'll be eligible next year anyway. :)

Ultra this year I think was the first year it felt like what ultra should be: hard mode. Sequels are easier than making something from scratch, animals and children was tricky but fun, split screen is a massive challenge both technically and story wise.

For us the forth wall break felt natural, as plenty of coming of age films have narration to camera, but I do wonder if it was thrown in to give teams a push to play around with the way the frames interact in a split screen film. In the end we didn't take it in that direction, as there was just so much else to do.

We definitely felt challenged this year. Very funny when the ultra wheel landed on prequel first, I was looking forward to a chill weekend and lots of rage on the forum.

in reply to Joel_Tempero:

I think I found myself less motivated to do it

That’s funny. I would’ve loved to do a split screen film. Like toowit has said this year is what Ultra always should’ve been.

Didn't they change the rules this year so that any team that's been a city finalist before is now eligible?

Only national finalists, I believe.

I did enjoy the split screen element as a challenge even though it caused me some problems. I think the added 4th wall thing was a needless distraction though. Felt a bit like the organizers had doubts about the split-screen element. Though I did see an ad on facebook for an LG phone or something that will shoot split screen video automatically. A wide next to a close up since all these new phones have 2 cameras anyway. Not the most original way to do a split-screen movie but the easiest way.

Okay for real, we weren't even signed up for it and it still scared the CRAP outta me

Okay for real for real, I can't use the forums properly to save myself

TEAM DOLPHIN ANNOUNCEMENT
Team Dolphin had easily our most challenging year to date. ULTRA was no joke this year, that being said, last years ULTRA requirements left us with a rather odd loophole... Technically a school team is already made up of children. I'll admit, we got lucky with that one. Unfortunately, with some of our team members not being able to participate, the ULTRA challenge was too much of a challenge and we missed the hand in cut off. That's 48Hours for you though.
It's always gutting to be disqualified, our first year in the competition(2014, first year high schoolers) we got disqualified(also foreshadowing..) so it's disappointing, slightly ironic and exciting to me to announce that 2019 was Team Dolphin's last year in the competition and to go out disqualified, well it's almost poetic. It was our One Last Dance. Everybody wants a happy ending right, right? But sometimes it doesn't roll that way. Not that disqualification at any time is ever timely. That ULTRA thing had me scratching my head at the survivability of all that. But then again, that's the 48Hours gig. Part of the journey is the end. What am I tripping for? Everything is going to work out exactly the way it's supposed to. We love you 3000 48Hours.

in reply to KyleChang:

so it's disappointing, slightly ironic and exciting to me to announce that 2019 was Team Dolphin's last year in the competition and to go out disqualified, well it's almost poetic. It was our One Last Dance

Hey Team Dolphin, let me say that you've been fantastic. I remember your crazy first film back in 2014 and interviewing your team several times over the years. Your film-making has improved out-of-sight and you've given a lot of joy to the CHCH 48HOUR community. I hope in some shape or form you'll return to the comp in the future.

I'm stoked with the reaction our film got at the screening last night.
I was just reflecting that I had a full script pretty much planned out by about 7:20pm on the Friday, but I'm glad that we kept searching around for another idea 'just in case' and came up with the one we went with.

this isn't constructive in any way, but I don't care, watching all the heats was pretty draining. so I'm in a bit of a no fucks to give mood today.

my main takeaway thought for 2019 is that the two tickets per finalist team is FUCKING BULLSHIT.

the entry fee keeps going up, and we grumble a bit every year. but whatever. it costs what it costs to enter. but once entered. extorting $20 per person for a ticket to see the film you worked on at the finals is in very poor taste. in theory a film with a few nominations is going to mean that people nominated for those awards will have had to pay in order to be there on the off chance that they win.

in reply to Strange:

I didn't notice the two tickets thing. Damn. That is rough.

in reply to Brendon:

Yeah, other than trying to squeeze more money out of the comp I don't really see a reason for it. I could understand if it was just in Chch with a smaller capacity but it seems to be nationwide even though most places have the same venue as the last few years. They're really trying to encourage those Solo/Duo teams!!

Oh yeah, I just realised we usually get like 5 comps per team right? That's a bit unfun, now I have to find one friend to invite for free and make everyone else pay (not that much easier for a solo/duo team, lol)

If we make finals maybe we'll run a sweepstakes to see who gets our comps. Because we're staying a minimum of 13,000km away from the final regardless

Atomic Monkeys had heaps of fun. We saw our film at the heats tonight for the first time since 18:21pm on Sunday before hand in. We got some giggles from the audience so that is a win for us! It's the first time we have worked together as a husband/wife duo and we will definitely do that again.

We ended up doing live action animation (for the first time ever) and it was difficult. We thought we were being smart and getting the best of both worlds by not having to deal with actors and not having to animate backgrounds but it is surprisingly difficult to get a stick figure animation to interact with live action convincingly. It's also a lot more work as you have to animate AND film/edit... Doh!

Premier Pro crashed 4 times before 8pm on Friday night so pretty much everything was done in After Effects. I learned how to use about a squillion things that I've never used before... Motion tracking, stabilisation, chroma keying, 3D transformations etc... dynamic link was a crash-fest for some reason.

If we do the same again next year we will have to get two better devices and investigate some sort of cloud system to work on the project together rather than transferring things around with USB. I would also acquire a PC that is powerful enough to run something like Character Animator - I have a feeling that it would make life way easier than moving puppets frame by frame in After Effects... Walk cycles *shudder*.

Whoops - posted that in the wrong place! Silly little phone screen! Anyway.. feedback...

Launch - the Wellington launch had great atmosphere but unfortunately the shape of the venue makes it very difficult to see the screen or hear the audio unless you had a choice spot.

I liked the elements this year. They were quite devious and actually took a bit of effort to include rather than being able to add them in at the end in a panic. Wind seemed like a simple thing to include but I think in reality it's tricky - especially on an unusually calm Wellington day... We couldn't even get our kite to fly!!! Same with overhead shot.

Genres - I like the mix of new genres and the classics... Rom-com and musical just aren't going to go away are they? I am super glad that I am not having to judge all the cringe comedies though!

The ultra elements seemed fun this year - interesting but do-able. It has inspired us to maybe have a go next year!