In late October, myself, Izzy Kirby and Lewis Boudier signed up to the Shooting From The Hip 48 Hour Film Contest hosted in Bournemouth, after Izzy had heard about it online. Izzy had previously 2nd AC'd on a short film that was part of the London 48 Hour Film Project, a film that won multiple awards at the event, so it’s safe to say she brought that experience and reassurance to the group when going into this project.
Leading up to the event, which spanned from 7–9 November, Lewis came up with an idea about a mother and her son navigating grief. After checking out the locations we had around us, a practice studio we’d used a few times, our friend Leo Hernandez’s house that was local to the area and a nearby beach became the setting for the film.
We cast our mate Ábel Curtis as the lead role and composer for the film, given his guitar skills and natural talent. For the supporting role, Izzy’s family friend Harriet Waterhouse played the mother; she also starred in the London 48 Hour film she worked on. She was an integral part of the film, delivering a standard of performance that we’d never witnessed before, it was incredible. She also covered her own accommodation and travel, which we were extremely grateful for.
The process began when we received a title and prop at the opening event for Shooting From The Hip, hosted at The Old Fire Station. Also taking part were other groups of AUB students, which was a nice opportunity to connect and network. The 48 hours began and we were left with the title Free and the prop of some pink sunglasses. For the remainder of that night we finalised a story, planned our shots and prepared for the long days of production and post ahead.
The second day began – production day. We first headed over to the studio to shoot the opening scene and later moments from the same location. We had an incredible group of mates that were keen to get involved and help out, earning credits on the film (and free meal deals… and pints!)
Robin Paterson was sound recordist on the shoot days, utilising a phone on the end of a selfie stick with a plug-in microphone. A botched setup but it worked! As Director of Photography on the shoot, I brought my own five-in-one reflectors to bend the light in the space and my own camera to shoot. Molly Bender assisted with setting up lighting and holding reflectors in place and Tai Cadd and Luke Humphries were also additional characters in the scene. The shoot went smoothly from here and we were wrapped quicker than we thought! This was down to good planning from the night before, keeping shots to a minimum and keeping things professional but fun.
From here the momentum only grew with key moments being Harriet’s captivating monologue astounding us all, exploring some awesome new locations around the BCP area and making some great memories with everyone involved. Once we got back, we got started on logging and editing what we could of the film to get a head start for tomorrow. We finished Day One tired but proud.
Day Two started with two slight mishaps. Firstly, my alarm didn’t sound – Izzy, Ábel and Lewis had to pound my flat door to get me up in time… (whoops!) We weren’t late at all, thankfully. Secondly, on the way to our final shoot in the morning, we came to a stop at a traffic light and got bumped by the car behind – leaving no damage, thankfully! This was quite the wake up call.
We successfully filmed a flashback sequence, which myself and Ábel starred in. As soon as we got back we got to work on the edit and score. Stitching up all the footage we had captured and bringing the film's length to the required five minutes, which we completed three hours before the deadline and submitted confidently. We celebrated with pizza and a very long sleep.
On the following Thursday, ourselves and the other teams met at the Lighthouse in Poole for the screening and awards ceremony. This was a brilliant night and an opportunity to meet other filmmakers in the area. The awards were Audience Favourite, Best Use of Prop, Best Use of Title and finally Best Film. Lecturer Rob Amey was also attending and gave his compliments to our short, which was highly motivating. The event concluded with our team winning Best Use of Title.
The support we have been given by the lecturers at AUB on the whole has been a catalyst to our creativity and genuinely has us wanting to produce more. We all feel that Bournemouth Film School has certainly been the correct choice in helping us develop as filmmakers and has grown our passion for the art exponentially.
