Over this past week, I lead a team in participation in the Oklahoma City 48 Hour Film Project with Tiffany Gibson, Kristy Boone, Katie Kochelek, Josh Shriner, and Cassondra Darling. The event describes itself as, “a wild and sleepless weekend in which you and a team make a movie – write, shoot, edit and score it – in just 48 hours!”

It started Friday, July 29th at 6pm when the groups gathered together for the required elements and their genre drawings. The required elements for everyone was “an auto part” prop; the character “Mark or Maureen Linderville,” who was an illustrator; and the line of dialogue, “I have a surprise for you.” The genres I drew were “Buddy Film” and “Coming of Age.” Teams can use both or one. We used “buddy film.”

I don’t want to go too much into detail about the short movie, Guilt Trip, as I can’t share it publicly yet and I don’t want to spoil it beyond the trailer. I will talk about the progress though. Friday night we worked on the script on the patio of Peloton Wine Bar & Cafe until nearly Midnight. This meeting had only five people and it was such a creative and productive brainstorming session. Saturday everyone met at my place at about 8am and we headed out to Lake Thunderbird to film it. We wrapped up with the main filming around 5pm, which was when we guessed we would be done.

We had dinner together at Hideaway Pizza in Campus Corner in Norman. Once we were done eating, we went back to my place to rest and sign paperwork. Then around 7ish we went off to shot the last quick moment we needed, which took place at night. We finished filming at 8:10pm. We all went home. I got the footage sorted on my computer that night and on Sunday I edited the film. Around 3pm, Kristy came over and provided feedback on the final cut of the movie, along with my wife, Leslie. I gathered all of the materials and turned in the movie on time at 6:40pm!

The whole experience was positive. The only bad thing was the very last shot we need, we got eaten by mosquitoes that we weren’t expecting. I had bug spray too, but we didn’t think we would run into them where we were and it was the last 30-second shot we needed. Oh, well. It did help as motivation for the characters! We’re still alive.

I couldn’t have asked for a better team. I believe Kristy will win a Best Actress Award or Nomination and same for Katie as Supporting Actress. Josh was great comic relief, both on and off camera. Tiffany turned our notes and ideas into a coherent and solid script. Cassondra was super helpful as the production assistant.

Together, we made an awesome film.