72 Hour Film Shootout - Friday
This is a long post. If you’re not interested in filmmaking, or 72 hour film shootouts, or not interested in me, Dave, as a person, then you may want to skip this and go eat Crisco or something.
We’re in the Asian American Film Lab’s 4th Annual 72 Hour Film Shootout (Team HEAD ON [apply directly to the forehead]). This means that we had 72 hours to write, shoot, and edit a 5 minute short film on a theme that we found out on the AAfilmLab website at 5pm PST this past Friday.
I spend most of Friday at work hoping to get my shit done so that I can cut out early and help my producer, Neil, pick up last minute supplies for the weekend, but my co-workers seem hell bent on making sure that their computers require my personal assistance.
At 3pm, I just leave. That’s the kind of leeway that comes with working at the same place for 7 years and only ever asking for a raise once.
I run errands with Neil and at 5pm we check the website for this year’s 72 Hour Film Shootout Theme:
Elizabeth Ong is missing.
- but wait, there’s more:
Elizabeth Ong’s absence is essential to your story
Elizabeth Ong does not visually appear in your film
Elizabeth Ong has a connection with characters in your film
Okay, were the past themes this particular?
Now since I’m an actor, I’ve been seeing a few casting notices around LA for different teams that are prepping for this contest. I get this impression that some of these teams are pre-planning their ideas. These casting notices seemed to be pretty specific on details.
I’ve also seen some of the films from previous years, and I’ll be damned if some of those films also weren’t pre-planned. A few of the films I saw simply inserted the theme or mentioned it, then moved on. Many times, that year’s theme never had anything to do with the core story or film.
This is why I’m actually thrilled at this year’s theme (and the included caveats.) I think it’s a brilliant way to crack down on pre-planning.
See the thing is this: If you’re so intent on pre-planning your film, why bother entering a 72 hour contest in the first place? Why not just produce it like a normal film and do it right? Is it because of the contest aspect of the 72 hour film fest? There are plenty of film festivals and, in particular, short-film festivals all over the country that offer competition and prizes.
Now we’ve never participated in one of these before, but from what I see already, a 72 hour film shootout is unique in that everyone is working under the gun. It’s appropriately fun stress. It’s fun to see how everyone interprets a common theme, and it’s especially fun to see the occasional, brilliant, specific, clever interpretation of an idea - the type of interpretation that cannot come by simply applying a theme to a pre-planned idea.
Now I appreciate the virtues of good pre-planning and pre-visualization. Neil and I produced a short film before. It cost thousands of dollars and took 6 days to shoot. For both of us it was our first short film of this scope and budget. We were both green as hell, but it was funner than a sonuvabitch, and there was an appropriate amount of stress that came with it. It was one of the most rewarding and educational things we’ve ever done, and we can’t wait to do it again, especially now that we know what we’re doing (or, at least, have a better idea of it.)
But a 72 hour film shootout? This is purely fun. Aside from pulling together the resources and manpower beforehand, I didn’t have to waste brainpower thinking about it in the week before the contest started. If our idea/film was good, then great! If it turned out to be average, then whatever. At least we tried and we got a bit of a “workout”. If our film turned out to be absolutely atrocious, then we just wouldn’t submit it and we’d turn our phones off and go into hiding. But we would not pre-plan. That completely defeats the purpose of why we’re both doing this instead of just producing a normal film (which we plan on doing in a few months anyway).
Elizabeth Ong Is Missing
We start brainstorming.
We do not want to do something obvious, like:
“Elizabeth Ong said she’d be home at 7pm, but she is not here. Oh no. She is missing.”
Neil says, “What if Elizabeth Ong is a dog? And the whole film it seems like we’re looking for a person, but really, we find out that it’s about a lost dog” Hmmm…interesting. Let’s keep that one in mind.
I call Mike G, our resident playwright. He is in NY at the moment, workshopping his new play. Out of all our friends, Mike G has the biggest forehead, and thus, the biggest brain. This probably contributes to the fact that he has the biggest writing ability out of all of us as well. He also has the biggester use of adjectives then I do, which is why he’s such a good writer, and I write not dumb try.
Mike picks up, and the first thing he suggests: “What if Elizabeth Ong is a dog?” Hmmm…well, if Mike thinks so…
We keep brainstorming. Can’t come up with anything. Maybe the dog idea isn’t so bad.
Naoya, our AD, and Rickmond, our sound guy, come over to help brainstorm. Naoya brings beer. Good man, Naoya.
First thing Naoya says, “What if Elizabeth Ong is a dog? And we think everyone is looking for a person, but really…”
hahahahahaha no. Nope nope no.
Fuck that idea. I can already tell you right now that there are probably 5 other teams throughout the country that are writing scripts about a dog named Elizabeth Ong that ran away from home, and how it’s the cleverest play on the rules evar. No.
Still, we don’t have an idea. Suddenly the story about Elizabeth Ong not being home by 7pm is sounding mighty good.
In the real world, it’s getting close to 10pm, and we still have no idea. I start drinking Naoya’s beers.
Now I was in a creative writing class with Rickmond back as an undergrad at UCLA, and I remember when he used to be quite the quality short story writer. Somewhere along the way, he decided that he didn’t like being mainstream, or linear, or even just normal and he’s kinda stayed that way ever since. Whatever. It’s not so surprising. He’s a musician.
Rickmond hates rules. Mainly because they’re rules. You could give Rickmond a 20 dollar bill and make a rule that he has to go buy himself nice things, and he’d probably wipe his ass with Andrew Jackson’s face just to spite the rule.
So Rickmond is coming up with crazy ideas. Plays on words. How can we get around these rules? “Elizabeth Ong is missing…a bracelet!” “Elizabeth Ong is missing…the bus!” I shoot him down, but still…it’s got us thinking.
Neil, meanwhile, is fixated on some idea that involves lesbianism. He got on that idea pretty early on and every fifteen minutes he brings it up again. I shoot him down as well. Over and over.
On my end, I’m thinking about details already. Every time an idea comes up I start considering possibilities, execution - How would we do this? What could we do with this? Does this give us any other ideas?
We go through our resources. We have 3 actors - Tim, Vivian, and Damian (Asian guy, Asian girl, middle-aged Italian guy.) We have access to several locations - 3 apartments, a large house (though it’s far away in Orange County), an office (mine), and Rickmond’s wife’s clothing store, currently under renovation.
Still, nada. Zilch. Nothing at least that I’m excited about.
Rickmond *does* have me thinking though. The rules are very specific and set very clear boundaries, unlike previous years’ competitions. When the boundaries are this clear, it’s cool if you can find a chink in the wall. Finding that hole gives the same satisfaction that Hogan’s Heroes must have felt. AAFilmLab is our Colonel Klink.
Somewhere along the way, while racking my brain about details and execution, I get an idea. Or at least I think it was me. Actually I don’t care. I’m taking credit for it anyway:
What if we shot the whole movie in POV (Point-of-View)?
That way we we’d be able to get around the rules which seem intent on preventing Elizabeth Ong from becoming an active character within the story (and also preventing the “Elizabeth Ong” mantle from being placed upon a pre-existing, pre-planned character.)
By doing this, Elizabeth Ong does not “visually appear” in our film.
Okay, how about the “missing” aspect and how her absence is essential to the story?
Simple: She’s been kidnapped. Sweet!
“Elizabeth Ong has a connection with characters in your film”
Oh she will. I’m not worried about that rule.
Awesome! We’re going with this!
Okay…so why is she kidnapped?
Here’s where we hit another snag. We run through idea after idea after idea. Neil starts trying to slip the lesbianism back into the story, but I whack him on the nose with a rolled up newspaper and give him a firm “No!”
But it’s Neil that comes up with the final idea: A crazy stalker (our actor Tim) has kidnapped Elizabeth Ong to force her to marry him.
There’s something so kooky and specific about that idea, and there are possibilities. I don’t know what they are, but in my gut, I know that there are possibilities with that idea if we are shooting this POV. We decide to go with it. We don’t waste any time questioning *why* Neil would think up of such a thing and we move on to the other actors.
Damian can be the priest that Tim’s character has also kidnapped to perform the ceremony.
So what about Vivian? Vivian is a female friend of Tim’s that is so completely, unhealthily in love with him that she actually helps him with the kidnappings. The kicker - she’s helping Tim “marry” the same woman that he’s obsessed/in love with, and it’s killing her. Vivian’s character will end up being the best character in the film, in sheer narrative weight.
It’s 11pm and we contact the actors. They’ve been waiting for us to call. We tell them to meet at Rickmond’s wife’s shop tomorrow at 11am. We’ll have script for them then.
We brainstorm for another hour. It helps a little, but really, I just need to sit and write this. Rickmond and Naoya leave at midnight (or 1AM?) and I start writing. Neil stays up for a little, but soon passes out on the couch.
I’m tired. I drink a Red Bull. I write till about 4-4:30am. A lot of this time is spent staring at the screen and muttering to myself, punctuated by periods of actual typing. But mostly staring at the screen and muttering to myself.
I finish a draft and wake up Neil. Neil, who has been sleeping during the 4 hours that I’ve been working, takes a look at the script and gives me several suggestions. My knee-jerk, gut reaction to his suggestions is to throw my laptop at him and scream about how maybe he should just write his own goddam script about lesbians, but instead I just take his suggestions and incorporate them into the script.
When all is said and done, it’s 5AM. The actor call time is in 6 hours. Neil and I agree to wake at 9am to account for time and take care of last minutes before we get to set. Four hours of sleep for me.
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