We entered a short film competition

jenion (27)in #shortfilm • 6 years ago (edited)

The Metaverse Project enters a film competition.

So maybe you've heard of Secret Cinema ?

Well, this wasn't so secret, but still... the 48 Hour Film challenge by Portsmouth's DVMission had some secrets up its sleeve. http://www.dvmission.co.uk

Over 30 teams entered this year (2018), double last years count.

The theme was something HORROR, perhaps zombies, maybe vampires, perhaps a little Tarantino thrown in for good measure... we all waited with bated breath for the obstructions.

There was little point preparing anything upfront. We learnt this from our previous year. The obstructions arrive on the Friday night, the title, the necessary line of dialog, and the genre... and then you've got until Sunday 5pm to write the script, film the film, edit it, and upload it !

A two minute film in 48 hours - it was quite a rush !

This year we'd recruited the help of two new virgin DVmission volunteers, they had no idea what they were letting themselves in for ! Team Project Metaverse was ready ! http://www.themetaverseproject.com

Zombies !!! - A Zombie Romantic Comedy, to be more precise. These were our obstructions.

We'd planned ahead, we had some liquid latex, Vaseline, some flour and makeup. I had a recipe for horror makeup thanks to youtube. We were ready for action, so I thought, but I'd never actually made fake skin before, or applied it to anyone's head !

Fortunately my willing volunteer was up for the challenge.

-Zombie 1 - played by Pedro-

Friday night had been script writing night, and I was lucky enough to have the help of my good friend Adur Alkain, a writer from the Basque region. We quickly put a script together, and it actually felt like it could work. I thought it was really quite funny - and of course it involved zombies eating brainzzzz....

So I figured I'd have to make some fresh brainzzzz. Luckily we had a bag of oats and some jelly cubes :-O

It was actually edible, and according to our zombies, it tasted Okay.

Now it was filming time. Last year there was just the two of us, we had no help, and no other actors, so both of us played two roles each. It was very draining and took us all day to film, change costume, set camera angles, film again, etc etc...
So I'd prepared to be at it all day again. However with the help of our friends the filming seemed to be going on schedule.

We even had time for some social media shots...

-Dr. Strangegloves - played by Zakaria Wincott

However, by 3.30 pm, we were all pretty exhausted, and we started making mistakes. Mistakes only discovered later on in the editing stage... It's all part of the fun !

I don't have any photos of me editing, but you can imagine... late night scene, bleary eyed, lots of coffee and sugar...

By sometime on Sunday morning it was done...

The uploading could commence.

But, little did we know... At some point before the whole event had begun, a setup error in the registration process had caused a malfunction in our team account... the film uploaded, but it wasn't being registered !

Time was running out - all our hard work could be lost !