Last night marked day one of Buffalo’s 48 Hour Film project
underscoring just how difficult making a film in 48 Hours can be. City producer
Garrett Vorreuter welcomed an enthusiastic crowd stating it was this year’s
best line up ("best" a little subjective – see my post on last year’s jurycertified best of). Tonight’s screening (at 7PM) contains the other half and
we’ll have our review up tomorrow.
As for last night, section “A” – again making a movie in 48
Hours is no easy feat and each group was met with mixed successes – no
masterpieces amongst them I’m sad to say. (for this reason we encourage
filmmakers to get in contact with us once their films are completed for a full
coverage right here)
Captive (by Project Sandbox/SunSpin Films) suffers first
from story – it is what it is: a women is “captured” walking with her kid and
thrown in a basement – apart from some decent shots achieving her POV it is
what it is and we’ve seen it a billion times before. This is the microwave
burrito version of filmmaking.
For Your Consideration (by Framed Meat) plays like one of
those movies the stoner kid makes in less than 48 hours because he had to for
class. Violating the first principal of filmmaking “show don’t tell” – it’s a
dark comedy that’s light on the laughs (and concept too).
Life is a Beach (by Canisius College Video Institute) is a
painfully simple premise, not sure really what it was saying: a guy lounges
clearly not at the beach waiting for a record deal. Again – time is not a
friend here. Technically its pretty well shot (but poorly sound mixed).
Slick Rudd: The Origin Story (by A Major Films) is the
second 48 Hour effort by 16-year old Yale Freed and it scored the biggest
laughs of the evening. Setting up a tween mistaken identity film, Freed pushes
back to reveal his own anxieties about competing in the 48 Hour Film Project,
and his own identity crisis. This is like the white, male teen version of Cheryl
Dunne’s classic The Watermelon Women, in the suburbs.
Bodies (by Avenue Now) is gangster flick that commits a big
sin – it’s pretty well shot except for the most important moment in the flick!
Restrained, the use of sound is quite impressive.
Artificial Embers (by Permanent Inc) is pretty well acted
and lensed (and one of the three of the evening shot in widescreen
cinemascope) - drawing the
“romance” category it’s a little cold and maybe not as romantic as you’d
expect, the story is really a science fiction film (I think, although that’s
not terribly explicit).
Jolene (by ND Studios) suffers from uneven performances – a
southern country music drama (in the thriller/suspense genre) it’s on the nose
with professional cinematography, its ambition (and the fact that several
actors can’t really pull off a strong southern accent) is a distraction.
Franklin Street (by Point and Shoot) marks the return of
Tracey B. Wilson (seen in our previous post in Perfect Pitch) – working in the
“drama” genre this is a story with the potential to be powerful, the
performances are fine but not as polished as they should be. Mostly well done
from a technical aspect, the story is about as well polished as you can get in
48 Hours.
Filmmakers and teams (actually anybody- - really) are
invited to submit links to their works for full review, often many go back and
polish their films a bit more and we’d love to see them. Get in contact with us
at BuffaloMovieBlog@gmail.com
or @BuffaloMovieBlog on Twitter.
