VF48Hours Lockdown Forum

in reply to steelpotato:

That's quite interesting AJ, because 'heist' also gives characters a theoretical desire right?

I would say, while both "Wish" and "Heist" give characters a desire, "Heist" seems to be more steeped in cliche.

As a team who got "Heist" I would agree with the steeped in cliche bit. We went around and around in circles for aaaaages with a million ideas that just all felt like they had already been done, or every other team with Heist would have thought of them too.

"Stealing diamonds! No, every heist is stealing diamonds or money. Make it trivial, like a worker who really wants some other person's donut out of the office fridge. No every non-diamond heist is literally that! Kids, heisting cookies from the cupboard, or money from their parents... IT'S ALL BEEN DONE!"

So out of frustration we turned it into a musical, lol. Because we came up with the title Heist School Musical and it seemed infinitely better than anything else we'd come up with so we came up with a story to fit, lol.

Heist is definitely more plot driven because it's the 'elaborate scheme to try to get the thing' that drives it, rather than the character's need as such. And singular character arcs are kind of easier to get bang for buck with in a 5 minute film I think.

We are guilty of using our puddle lazily as an opening shot, but in our defense we had better plans, but having to write songs (having never attempted a musical and with only one musician on the team who was also DOP and director) we couldn't start filming until 11pm saturday, and at 4am when we finally did our puddle shot it was raining heavily outside and too dark for most of my lenses to get the shot we actually wanted, haha.

So it is what it is but that's what 48s is all about when you're not a pro team right? :P

I do like that the "things" that have to be included are much less jarring this year. You don't really notice a bunch of puddles, shadows, and door slams in a row in the same way that you notice "Oh Harper Harrison, you're so thoughtless in the way that you're eating that bread!" "Oh really?" Haha.

in reply to Rastinha:

I do like that the "things" that have to be included are much less jarring this year. You don't really notice a bunch of puddles, shadows, and door slams in a row in the same way that you notice "Oh Harper Harrison, you're so thoughtless in the way that you're eating that bread!" "Oh really?" Haha.

I agree that all three elements this year were of the type that could just naturally fit into a wide range of cinematic contexts, which was great (but also could still be clever or showy if you wanted to use them that way too). That's a strong contrast with what I might argue was the single worst required element ever, last year's Wilhelm Scream, where outside of a handful of very specific contexts, it was almost impossible to make it feel like it belonged in the film.

in reply to TheNimbleMarmoset:

That's a strong contrast with what I might argue was the single worst required element ever, last year's Wilhelm Scream, where outside of a handful of very specific contexts, it was almost impossible to make it feel like it belonged in the film.

I have a love/hate relationship with the Wilhelm Scream because without it my film would't have had an ending (not a very good ending but an ending nonetheless).

Perhaps a coincidence, but the 72hour horror film racing competition earlier in Match this year required a 'shadow' and 'a door opening'. Not promoting this competition, but rather just pointing out that we could have probably gotten away with submitting our entry for that with minor changes!

ANYWAY could the decision makers PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE consider some really really exciting genres, like 80s Action Movie. I mention this each year that personally I prefer to indulge in an action spectacle, which I feel has the maximise the effect of having things displayed on a BIG SCREEN. Primarily, I crave visual feasts, rather than a traditional story arc.

The year with 'Grindhouse' as a genre produced some cool entries!

I really would like to see a year where teams are forced to dust off their mini-guns out from their hiding places.

in reply to jjosland:

I really would like to see a year where teams are forced to dust off their mini-guns out from their hiding places.

2019 Genre: Mad Scientist Back Catalogue Film.

That’d be rad. (Alternatively: the impersonating another team genre)

I really loved the suggestion from last year's facebook vote-off on a new genre of "State sanctioned propaganda", I reckon that'd be cool.

Or like educational documentary or something random like that.

But overall the thing I'd like most is a feedback form that gets sent out after 7pm Sunday so I can give comprehensive and useful feedback, instead of it being combined with the online wrap form, because I'm really not going to waste 20-30 mins of my 48 hours right at the end when I want to get it in on time, but I always have lots to say, lol :P

Keep it simple and leave plenty of room for interpretation.

I still like the idea of combined genres, like space musical or science horror or even aerial dance just to really mix it up.

I kind of miss the traditional character and line of dialogue but am also quite enjoying this new format.

in reply to Rastinha:

I really loved the suggestion from last year's facebook vote-off on a new genre of "State sanctioned propaganda", I reckon that'd be cool.

Yeah, that's a fantastic genre idea. In fact, I think I'd take it one step further and structure it like Musical, i.e. "State Sanctioned Propaganda + any of the other genres". Like, it's a Horror about the evils of capitalism, or a Rom Com about how the love for an individual is less important than a love of country.

in reply to Rastinha:

We will be sending out a more general feedback survey a bit later probably at the end of the competition and we also read everyone's feedback on the forums too (so it is a good place to offer suggestions). Ruth and I are can also be contacted over emails.

We may not action everyone's suggestions but we always listen and discuss ideas/address complaints to keep improving the competition each year. It is good to keep in mind that the competition is a huge administration beast so we have to be realistic and keep to a budget but we do what we can!

2019 Genre: Mad Scientist Back Catalogue Film.

Wow that would be liberating!

This year worked well, but I'd love to see the event outside the May - July window, just because we lose light so fast; goodness knows how Dunedin teams managed.

On the "Genre +" suggestions, I think this is a great idea, worked well for Musical, added a new twist to something that's been in the comp almost every year.
I'd like to see this come back with a few of the less specific genres, the ones that kind of give you a framework, then combine it with something a bit more specific or tricky.

Could have for example:
Rom-Com +
Action +
Mystery +
etc etc

The international 48hours comps (not affiliated with HP/nz) have had combo genres for years. Randomly drawn too from memory.

What about a new tradition of putting 48 hours on daylight savings weekend in April? Y'know, so we can have *ahem* an extra hour sleep? :P

As the guy who made the genre table in the 48 hours wikipedia entry,
I have struggled with genres and sub-genres too. And every year when I update it, I have to re-sort the genre table to try to squeeze the common duplicates into relevant columns.

You have the core genres like: Drama, Crime, RomCom, Horror, Action, SciFi.
Which actually are true genres.

But each year, we get a set of genres that aren't really genres.
I would call them more like "techniques" or "style" (for want of better words):

For example from past years: Converging Storyline, Film within a film, Single shot, Shock ending, Black comedy, Silent Movie

Musical should be in this second list too.

To this second list you can add some of this year's genres too:
back-from-the-dead, fish-outa-water. Maybe even Heist and spans-10-years.

Then, what you could do is to give each team a random base genre plus a random technique. Or even two techniques...

Action + Silent movie
Musical + Back-from-the-dead + Rom-Com
Single-shot + Shock-ending + Drama
SciFi + Black Comedy + Heist

Too prescriptive?

in reply to squire:

OMG IT'S YOU!?!
Seriously the identity of the Wikipedia page editor was one of the biggest unsolved 48 mysteries, because it was no one on staff and it's been an insanely helpful resource lol.

in reply to squire:

Too prescriptive?

Adding three things on top of one another would be *utterly bonkers*. I personally also profoundly disagree with your definition of what is and isn't a genre...

in reply to Andrew Todd:

Three maybe bonkers :).
But two would work. A staple genre and a sub-genre or technique (or trope).

in reply to squire:

Then, what you could do is to give each team a random base genre plus a random technique. Or even two techniques...

Action + Silent movie
Musical + Back-from-the-dead + Rom-Com
Single-shot + Shock-ending + Drama
SciFi + Black Comedy + Heist

Too prescriptive?

For my tastes, I would say yes, too prescriptive - I suspect it would end up feeling more like a blazing hoop to jump through, rather than a genuinely helpful enabling constraint to guide a team's creativity.

On top of that, I think part of the joy of the competition is in seeing the unexpected ways that teams interpret a genre. If someone got Action as their genre, and decided to embrace the genre but in the format of a silent film, that would be very cool. But if they had been given Action + Silent Film then it would be more a case of "oh well, they just did what they were told to do".