Chuck speaks out! His account of the 48 Hour Film Project

“Are we doing the 48 this year?”

The question. THE question. It got bounced around quite a bit between the three of us.

“We don’t have the equipment. Or the time. Or the resources.”

Which we didn’t, really. So obviously we made the decision not to do it this year, which in turn led us to making a stop motion film in just 48 hours.

“Are you crazy?” one might ask. A viable question, and the answer to that might be a resounding “Yep,” but coming from one that has tremendous delusions of grandeur, we were confident we could pull it off. Never mind we had no idea what we were doing. Never mind the only experience any of us had with stop motion was childhood dabblings with toy dinosaurs and VHS tapes. We’d figure it out, right? We had an editor who was willing to work with us so we could just concentrate on filming, so at least there was that.

The first step: equipment. We needed a camera set-up that would work for a claymation or stop motion film. Molly already had some good set pieces for whatever locations we needed for the shoot, plus endless art supplies to make houses or trees or whatever we could think up. Characters could be made from clay or we could use toys. We decided both would be a good idea, depending on the story we ended up with.

After doing some research online, we ordered some clay a few weeks before the shoot. During this same time, we had a meeting to brainstorm ideas for all the possible film genres we could pull out of the magic hat at the kick off (more on this later). Many laughs and goofy and brilliant ideas later we had a full roster. Jake and Molly were particularly in love with the idea Jake came up with for Sci-Fi, a tale of two friends that love Star Trek and encounter real Klingons but don’t know it. The best quality about the idea is it also worked for Comedy and Buddy Film. Chuck thought it was a good idea but had never been a Trekkie so was ambivalent towards whatever genre the team pulled. Being a genius he knew he could write anything and it would be basically perfect. The only genre that wasn’t feasible was Mockumentary.

Molly went about the difficult task of assembling the equipment. We needed a PC that could handle Stop Motion Pro, which was recommended by a friend who also does animation. It’s PC only, and Molly has a Mac. However, her ridiculously outdated computer from high school was sitting at her parents’ house in South Georgia. Chuck, coincidentally, had been down in South Georgia for months handling some family issues, so on his way back to Atlanta he ran by that house and grabbed it. Molly’s dad made sure it was working but it needed more memory…WAY more memory.

Not being a technical person, Chuck found himself in charge of fixing up the computer. Stopping by his local Best Buy, the lady pointed him to the right product to get and he skipped home to install it. Struggling with the little clips, Chuck finally figured out how to properly cram the stupid things in and turned it on – it worked! The memory was in; we had a working computer that should run the software.

Wait, what the hell was this? Password? This wasn’t here before. He called Molly and she had no idea, though she gave some potential passwords. Chuck finally realized it was a BIOS password. Consulting with a computer friend, he popped the internal battery out to hopefully reset it. Putting it back in and turning it on – everything worked. Wonders never cease.

During this time, Molly ordered a capture stick for her computer – a USB port device that connects the computer to the camera. She checked online and found that her camera was compatible with the software for a “live feed,” which means all we had to do was click the button on Stop Motion Pro to get a picture of whatever the camera was looking at, which would save us quite a bit of time if we were to make the 48 hour cut-off. For some reason, she couldn’t find the capture stick here in the US, so one was ordered from Canada. Would it get here on time?

Shortly thereafter, Chuck got a call from the editor who was going to help cut the film. Seems he wanted to throw his hat into the arena despite his original plans to jump on another team this year. We were now editorless. Awesome.

Another issue arose as we discovered the edition of Stop Motion Pro needed cost…a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Way more than expected, considering all the other bits and pieces needed for the shoot. After asking around town for a possible copy floating around, Chuck and Molly hopped online and dug and dug until they discovered a way cheaper copy could be ordered with a student or teacher ID card. Knowing several teachers and/or students, we figured this would work fine.

A week before the kick-off, there was a big meet and greet at the ATL 365 building on Means Street. Chuck found himself in a crowded room with a bunch of desperate and lonely actors looking to hop on someone’s project. He did manage to meet a few people and luckily his buddy Chris from Stouthouse Productions showed up to make the event less painful. After basically making fun of everyone in the room for half an hour, they parted ways with a handshake. Chuck was kind of afraid of the drop-off going poorly as there is virtually no parking nor room in the building at this place, but nothing could be done.

By the way – still no capture stick. Molly emails the company. Literally. She emailed every single person in the company to find out where the damn stick was. “Oh!” they all said. “Our website has been stupid and broken. We totally didn’t even get your purchase yet.” They said it would be around Wednesday before it came in. So much for practicing!

In the meantime she finagled a student ID, probably in a drunken bet, and managed to get Stop Motion Pro Mega Awesome Live Feed Version on the piece of crap run-down PC, which had no modem with which to download the software. But, she got it on there, and it ran.

Monday before the shoot – mysteriously, the stick arrives! We can practice! Chuck tore out of his apartment to go play with the clay, as he had been patiently waiting to get his hands on it and was eager to squish it between his fingers. As he had only been to Molly’s new place two or three times before, he called to ask what the house number was. He could immediately tell by Molly’s dejected tone it was going to be a long ass day.

Sure enough, the computer didn’t like the capture stick. Oh, it read the thing alright, but when we tried to get Stop Motion Pro or even the software the stick came with to start it up – nothing doing. Hours of trying different things came up with nothing. Molly helped by watching Doctor Who, which Chuck had not seen the new episodes and totally wants to see the rest now. She borrowed a friend’s PC laptop and we tried the stick in it – being much newer, it immediately downloaded proper drivers on to the computer and the stick worked fine. We temporarily loaded the software (not Stop Motion Pro – it can only be installed on one computer of course!) on to the laptop and tested it…it worked. So it was the computer. Awesome.

Chuck eventually narrowed the problem down to two things. One was the driver wasn’t properly installing via the CD and might be fixed by getting the computer online (remember no modem? Yeah). Two was the computer was so goddamn old it had outdated USB ports. The stick required USB 2.0 ports but he figured it might not be it as it should read it anyway, just be slower. What to do? He consulted with some computer friends of his and received mixed advice. It was a conundrum to say the least. Molly even contemplated buying a PC laptop with money she didn’t have. If we couldn’t get the PC to work, we were basically screwed.

At the last minute we ran to Best Buy. Chuck described the situation to two different technicians. One was so sure he said, “I KNOW that’s it.” He immediately led us to a USB 2.0 PCI card. “Great,” Chuck said. “Something else to install I don’t know how to do.”

Molly had also located a cheap-ish laptop that was on sale. It was the last one they had. Should she buy it? If the part didn’t work and the laptop disappeared, we might not get another chance. The call was made to try the part first. Chuck feigned confidence as they checked out.

Back at the apartment, Chuck immediately set off to try everything out. Remembering how simple yet irritating the memory sticks were, he made sure to read the instructions and properly install it. Or at least try – the damn thing didn’t exactly fit right. After managing to cram it in somehow without breaking it and quickly screwing on the backplate before it all fell out, he replaced all the parts and turned it on and installed the software. Restarting, he checked the ports.

Nothing. Didn’t even read it.

Sweating profusely, he unscrewed and started over, even consulting a how-to video. He had done everything right, what was the problem? He worked from the beginning. Did it fit better this time, or was it his imagination? No way to find out except turn this bitch on.

Instead of checking the computer’s system, he simply plugged the stick in. A message popped up: “New Hardware Detected.” Trying not to get excited, he opened up the software the stick came with and tested it out. No feed. He took a picture of his face with the camera and clicked the capture button.

There was his cheek on the screen. It fucking worked!

Molly ran in to screams and jumps for joy. The real test was to come – open up Stop Motion Pro. The capture option we needed was in fact there and ready.

But what was with the feed? It was supposed to be a live feed to where you don’t actually hit the button on the camera but should be a constant stream of imagery. Molly checked the instruction manual for the camera which clearly stated no live feed is possible. We rechecked the Stop Motion Pro website which clearly stated her camera should work. No matter what anyone said, it obviously wasn’t working. We realized the shoot was going to take way longer than expected, and we were already looking at a really long weekend.

Jake and Jeremy came up on Wednesday to see the Two Man Gentlemen Band. Jeremy was to stay through Saturday night and help with initial stuff while Jake would stay through Monday morning. After a fun evening, everyone prepared for the weekend. Molly grabbed a remote for the camera so we didn’t move the stupid thing every time we pushed the button now that we weren’t working with the live feed.

Thursday was pre-production, though obviously not much can really be done. We got our hands on the clay and played with it a bit and tested out the software. We were shooting in 15 frames per second (normal is 24 frames per second) as that would tremendously cut down on our time. We made our first animation with a movable wooden figure Molly had. It captured fine (despite the lack of live feed). The software animated easily. Molly burned the animation on a disc and traveled it over to the Mac to edit on Final Cut Studio. It worked fine. She saved it and burned it on a disc. That worked fine. Could things really be turning around? Were we actually going to be able to do this? We decided not to curse it and just keep our big mouths shut. Jeremy, Jake and Chuck went to Centennial Olympic Park to watch Ghostbusters on a huge screen which was pretty fun.

Friday we got up early to do some more last minute things, including going grocery shopping so we didn’t leave the set every few hours for food. We got some good stuff, like bean burrito mixes, grapes, and every single type of bread known to man, including bagels. Molly had to exchange a battery for her camera that was to be used as the back-up. She had bought one recommended by the Battery Plus store clerk but this person was wrong, dead wrong. She stopped in and not only got the right battery this time but some money back! Clearly our luck had switched, but we were hesitant to say anything out loud.

The kick-off celebration was held at the Independent next to the Landmark Theater in Atlanta. It’s a pleasant enough bar, but very limited in space. We got there ridiculously early, not only to get a good spot, but Molly wanted to grab an Italian ice in a nearby store. She had become addicted to them during the Atlanta Film Festival and was in need of a fix. After that, we wandered over to the Independent and got a table and waited.

And waited. And waited.

Molly and Chuck ordered beers. Chuck had a Magic Hat #9 that unfortunately was slightly skunky. That didn’t bode well. What also didn’t bode well is the room was SLAM CRAMMED PACKED with other team members. We all became very claustrophobic. We were realized we would probably be going last during the genre picking, as they more than likely would go alphabetically. Starting with a Z definitely doesn’t help. Chuck recommended next year entering the team as “AAAAAA.” He was only kind of joking.

Chuck had his notebook so he started making notes on the potential films we could get. Jake and Molly lamented how awesome it would be to get Sci-Fi. Finally things got off to a start. Charles Judson, the brand new director of the Atlanta 48 Hour Film Project, got up on a chair and yelled at everyone to stop talking, which of course resulted in five hundred people shushing each other.

The kick-off goes like this. The teams are split up into Groups beforehand (we were Group A). A team is called, and they pick a piece of paper out of a literal hat that has a genre on it (out of a possible 15-20, anything from horror to Musical/Western). After all the teams pick their genres, Charles will announce a specific character, line, and prop you MUST use in the film. Then we would all run out the door to make our masterpieces.

Group A was about to be called. We settled in to wait…but what’s this? Reverse alphabetical? We were going first! Jake skipped up to the front (which was difficult in the sea of people) and the rest of us waited nervously. We just KNEW we were getting mockumentary. Molly continued to loudly wish for Sci-Fi. Jake pulled a slip of paper.

Sci-Fi. Holy shit.

The required elements could potentially wreck the Klingon idea, so we were still rather nervous. At least the others were; Chuck was still confident he could fit anything anywhere. He is an award winning writer, let’s get serious here.

Luckily, the elements fit fine – so fine it was actually a bit unsettling. We kept feeling like we were going to wake up at some point. They fit almost perfectly into the film. Anyway, after Charles gave some more info (including the Twitter hashtag, which we put to full use) we grabbed our stuff (including a free case of Red Bull) and headed out to work on the script development over Chinese.

Chinese? What in the hell were we doing? Go! You think you have all weekend? Jake had the idea to have a quiet, slow dinner and fill our tummies up before doing any serious work. Chuck had drafted a version already anyway so all was needed was some fine-tuning. Over rice and fortune cookies we figured out some particulars of the story and added some more jokes and headed back to Molly’s apartment for the shoot. On the way, Jake wrote down all the respective scenes and Chuck storyboarded, though those jobs probably should’ve been switched. As soon as we got back, Chuck hit the computer and pumped out the script while Jake made characters and Molly worked on sets.

At some point, Jeremy did the numbers on how long the shoot would take. We were incredibly surprised to realize if we shot straight through, we should be done in about ten hours! For some reason our estimations had been way overblown and we might actually end up with extra time. But we didn’t get overconfident and blocked off 12-15 hours of shooting time and immediately got to work.

After a clunky beginning of trying to get used to clicking the different buttons and figuring out how best to move the clay around, we worked all through the night. People came and went. Jordan showed up and helped paint locations. Michael appeared after work and started his custom music and sound effects work, though most of that was to come later. Laura came by to grade papers and gave us cotton balls, which we used to film our now world-famous steam coming out of the bus’ hood sequence. Jake became addicted to Red Bull.

During the shoot there was a subconscious, hive-mind team agreement to use the Twitter hashtag to be as obnoxious as possible. Once we realized how well things were going, how smooth the shoot was, we started talking smack to the other teams through the Twitter feed. On Saturday afternoon (after a 4 hour nap) things got even more obnoxious as we were shooting the final scenes already. We continued to read the other Twitter feeds and were amazed at how quickly things were moving along for us.

We wrapped principal photography Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately, our excitement was stifled by the fact we only had around three (3) minutes of footage! The minimum for the contest is 4 minutes, with a max of 7. The script was roughly 3 ½ pages long, which should’ve made for at least 3 ½ minutes, but quite a bit was cut out, including a genius line where someone gets called a “Douchetrooper.” So, with all that cut out, the film was too short. What in the hell were we going to do? Luckily, we had quite a while to figure it out.

One idea was to extend the Klingon section. Surely there could be more antics they could do? What about an extra scene with the main character changing costumes humorously? Plus, we had filmed some “live action” hands scenes, could we add more of those? Would it kill the story? Would our artistic vision be destroyed?

We decided a few additions such as these wouldn’t necessarily destroy anything. We still had Jeremy and his big, strong hands for a while, so we dressed him back up to do some “driving” sequences. To be honest, we were actually blown away by how smooth these shots came out. There were some really good sequences with the clay, but Molly snapped so many shots during the driving bits it just looks incredible. Of course we immediately tweeted about it, Jake calling us all geniuses.

Strangely, the more we did Tweet, the more excited some people seemed to get. Even Charles, the head of the 48, said he couldn’t wait to see our movie. Hyping ourselves up really worked out somehow.

After that Jake and Chuck filmed the costume change sequence which ended up being pretty funny when we found the AT-ST from Star Wars actually fit into frame. With all this added footage, we ended up just over 4 minutes. Whew! After we finished…well, Jake and Chuck weren’t sure what to do. They cleaned and Chuck even shot a little sequence just for fun, which ended up as a post-credits special feature in the final film.

Michael had been hard at work at his house developing music, and he now came over. Unfortunately his first cut of the Klingon theme was…well, we called it “rape music.” It was seriously scary as shit but didn’t fit in with our film. He turned right back around and put in the music you hear now, this time even custom fit as we had a working print!

After music, Molly and Chuck hunted down special effects to insert while Michael also helped make some, including the Qapla’ (meaning Success/Victory! in Klingon) scream! Molly also found an appropriate heartbeat sound for the little special feature at the end. Finally, it was all put together and we watched our final film.

Molly wanted to go ahead and burn a copy, so she set out to burn a high quality DVD in Final Cut Pro. FCP isn’t what anyone would call the most user friendly software, and to burn one of these takes quite a few steps. While trying to figure this out, FCP shut down and asked Molly if she wanted to save. She said yes, not wanting to lose anything. When she pulled it back up, she opened the file.

Everything was gone. The film had vanished. All that was left was a very appropriate heartbeat sound. Mocking us.

Molly freaked. She felt like she was going to throw up. It was nowhere to be found. Chuck smacked his head and knew it was going to be another long night. He was no computer technician but somehow kept ending up in the role. After doing some research, we tried the most basic thing – restarting. Nothing. Just a heartbeat. Now it sounded like laughter from the other teams. We had plenty of time to recut the thing but…so much work, and we just had a finished copy. We had almost resigned ourselves to the fact we were going to have to do edit again when Chuck stumbled upon the small fact that FCP has an Autosave feature. But was it turned on?

Molly pulled up the folder and double clicked on a previous build. We waited and stared. Chuck puked a little. After a minute, the first thing to hit the screen was Qapla’! Success indeed computer! Everything was back to normal. Molly quickly saved and burned some regular copies of the low quality version. We were ok. We hit the hay for a while.

Waking up, we found a how-to on burning a high quality version. It took a while but we go it, but unfortunately it didn’t look any different. Molly surmised the fact that the live feed wasn’t working was hurting the quality as the image was being pulled from the viewfinder. We hoped the quality wouldn’t hurt the big screen version.

The wrap-up party was at the ATL 365 building again. Strangely, parking wasn’t an issue and the place wasn’t as slammed as Chuck thought. We watched a few teams run in at the last minute, including some burning DVDs while they walked in a few minutes before the final bell. Stouthouse got theirs in on time with no real issue, so the two teams chatted about how successful we would be. With a few free beers in them, the team wandered off to celebrate by watching “Big Man Japan,” which is insane and you should totally watch it.

Jake decided that night to stay through the screening as he had never been able to attend one. Tuesday night finally rolled around, Chuck rather hung over (hey, we work hard and party hard) and we were happy to see our film was playing next to last. Molly was nervous yet again but all was well – the film looked fine on the big screen. The audience seemed to get it and laugh at all the right places. There was some confusion at first at the way the film looks at first, due to the jerky hands being the first thing you see, but oohs and aahhhs were heard as people realized we had pulled off a stop motion film in 48 hours. Molly got a big cheer at the Q&A when she said she represented Zombie Cat. Afterwards we took Jake back home and now await the fate of the film and any awards it might bring!

–Chuck