Another project to come from the 48hr Film Project, however, this is the first one I Produced and Directed, as well as be the team leader for Cygnus Films. Out of all the 48’s I’ve done, this one was easily the best! I had three previous experiences with the 48hr Film Project before and I was quick to point out all of the flaws with each production. My main goal was to correct some, if not all of those issues. While I was able to make right on those, that didn’t mean the film didn’t run into it’s own issues. We had a hiccup with sound equipment right as we were about to start shooting scenes with dialogue. We also ran up to midnight with shooting. I had figured having a 5-page script would take a lot less time to shoot but the trickiest part of the 48 is that it really compresses time and anything that can go wrong will almost certainly will. I drew the genre Fantasy out of the hat and fortunately we had an idea before we picked up all of our production design materials. The film turned out really solid. There are some mistakes here and there, but overall I’m not shy to show off this film and feel confident that it can do well in the festival circuit.
The film stars Edi Tingle as the lead character Laurie WInnington, a magician wanting to become a full-on mage. Starring opposite her is Ricky Vu, who plays her down-to-earth and asshole-ish boyfriend, Ryan. Behind the camera were the writers Sean Davis (screenplay), Tanner Methven, Alex Ayres, Greg Clark, Jason Breitwieser, and myself contributing to the story. Jason acted as Executive Producer, Sean and Alex were Assistant Cameras, Tanner was the sound mixer, and Greg was a production assistant/sound editor. Tanner and Greg also made brief cameos as an upstairs Gamer and Pizza Man, respectively. Other crew members included Sarah Iseley as the editor and media manager, Beverly Hegmon as our makeup artist, and Luke Orr as a production assistant/boom operator. I must give some behind the scenes credit to our lead actors as well for assisting with anything when something needed to be done. I also want to give a shout out to Sasha Vladimir for composing some tracks for the film. unfortunately, we ran out of time to mix them in because we were really running out of time.
And absolutely no thanks to BOYA microphones for having shitty gear that delayed us two hours on set. Pro tip: Rent/buy good quality microphones, or hire someone who has good sound equipment.
