Film Challenge Retrospective: I Stole a Lot of Money!

How now, lords and ladies? Eric here, as your ghost of film challenges past, with the final installment of our retrospective series!

If you’ve been keeping up with Two Jackets Productions this month, then you’ve noticed we’re feeling nostalgic. This week, Andrew got spooky-scary with his review of All Dressed in White, and Marcus made us all want to go outside and make friends in a retrospective of his one-man-film, The Home Office. Unfortunately, I wasn’t on set or creatively involved in either of these films! To make up for that sad fact, I decided it was high time I direct something. After all, I hadn’t stood at the helm of any film project since A Lutefisk Western way back in 2010!

Luckily, there was one film challenge I hadn’t done since college and was dying to revisit: The Four Points Film Project (formerly the National Film Challenge) - an international free-for-all pitting teams from all over the world against each other in a 72-Hour filmmaking frenzy! Prizes! Glory! A worldwide stage! I said, “We have to do this!”

Marcus and Andrew said, “Yup okay.”

So, we signed up!  We gathered a small cast we knew could handle anything we could throw at them, from melodrama to comedy.  The roster included Emily King and Allen Voigt, who you may have seen in our short You Only Die Once!, and James Griffin, a local Minneapolis actor we scouted after seeing his fantastic performances in a handful of films. I directed AND shot (more on that later), Andrew produced, and Marcus wrote remotely from Ohio. Check out I Stole a Lot of Money! below:

Was that song about money? I feel like maybe that song had something to do with money.

As with all the other film challenges Two Jackets has been involved with, Four Points assigned us a set of required elements based on our time-zone:

Character: Martin Burley, ATM Technician
Line of Dialogue: “I heard you the first time.”
Prop: A balloon
Genre: Comedy

We were VERY happy with this assignment. The fact that we were given comedy as our genre meant that we knew we could make something silly, and boy did we.

Once we were given the elements via email, Andrew and I video-called Marcus out in Ohio (it’s the future, people!) and had a quick, productive brainstorming session. The planning was so successful because we employed all of the lessons we had learned in previous Film Challenge brainstorms, keeping it to just the three of us and using the required elements as our primary source of influence. Beyond that, we made a rule that I could veto any concept without argument as the director, and Marcus could do the same as the writer.  Marcus then led the brainstorming session, and I trusted that he would write something we could produce after we agreed on the concept.  Me letting go of the script that night was a huge boon to the production.  Within an hour, Marcus was writing, and I was able to get rest for the next day’s shoot.

We ended the film with a visual message instead of dialogue.

As I mentioned in the introduction to this post, I decided that I would shake things up a bit for this competition by taking on the dual role as director and cinematographer. The impetus for this decision was a desire to focus more on visual storytelling. The gang over here at Two Jackets loves (and I mean luuuurrrrves) our dialogue. We’re a wordy group, but I felt that we had been lacking in strong visual storytelling. I thought that by being in charge of the image on screen as well as the performances of our actors, I could simplify the translation from script to screen. I could make all the creative decisions, cut dialogue in favor of blocking and action where I could, and streamline the crew to keep us moving quickly.

It was stressful.

My focus on the cinematography and camera work made it much more difficult to give the actors the attention they deserved from a director. The first scene we shot on Saturday, which involved Emily and James walking along the train tracks, sharing their dreams for what to do with their new-found fortune, was technically very challenging for me as a camera operator. I had to track backwards as smoothly as I could, keeping both actors in frame while trying not to step into a hole or trip over a curb. We tried several times before we finally had a take I was happy with, but what I didn’t realize until reviewing the footage was that the performances I captured were not consistent at all. I gave Emily and James a vague direction about “being happier with their mouths way more open,” and the resulting scene features Emily practically vibrating with giddy excitement while James is dreamily pontificating to the cash gods in the sky. As the director, I should have seen the differences and molded the performances to fit one another. I should have established a strong narrative voice and a consistent rhetoric and tone for the piece. Instead, I was trying not to fall on my ass while operating a camera.

I didn't fall down.  On this take.

This was made more difficult by the fact that I didn’t have Andrew or Marcus on set with me to help me catch these mistakes. Marcus, as you know, was in Ohio. Alright fine. There’s nothing I could have done about that. Andrew, however, got stuck in his role as a producer staying with our gear at the location we were using as a home base.  We found out when we arrived that we couldn’t keep our equipment inside, and had to protect it from people wandering by outside. I could have used his critical eye on set while I was distracting myself with cinematographer duties. If I had planned better, I could have found a different home base for the shoot, freeing up Andrew to be on set.  I realize now that I Stole a Lot of Money! would have benefited greatly from having the entire Two Jackets team present.

I love I Stole a Lot of Money! for being an upbeat, silly, and successful little film (it got into the Top 20 in the worldwide competition!), but it could have been handled better. I was not up for the dual task of shooting and directing, and keeping my best collaborators at arms length meant I was wearing blinders the whole time, unable to see the mistakes I was making. Also, we didn’t have a designated editor at all for this project, which meant Andrew and I were doing everything ourselves, and didn’t have any footage cut together until after we wrapped.  This caused me to miss another opportunity to take a critical eye to our work while we still had a chance to reshoot, as we did on Keeping Up with the Cloneses. We were definitely stretching our abilities towards the end of a grueling 72-hour filmmaking marathon.

Directing balloons on very little sleep.

That’s why we’re all going to be in-town and on-set for the 2015 Minneapolis 48 Hour Film Project! I will be acting as cinematographer, and Marcus and Andrew will co-direct. We decided on this configuration as a direct result of our experiences of the last year. Not only did all three of us direct film challenge pieces in 2014, but we all over-reached our grasp. We attempted to do too much without the support of the other two Jackets. In The Home Office, Marcus faced the unique challenge of trying to direct a film while also having to provide the driving performance. In All Dressed in White, Andrew realized that producing the film caused enough stress to affect his ability to also direct it. And in I Stole a Lot of Money!, I learned that operating a camera is distracting enough that I can lose my ability to effectively direct performances.

The job of a director is challenging. It requires the utmost focus. It is often said that a director is a craftsperson who wears many hats on set. She/he must be an actor, a cinematographer, an editor, and a producer all in one. The director must be able to understand every part of the process in order to effectively oversee the creation of a film. However, and I can’t stress this enough, more important than being able to do all the jobs on set is the ability to let go and have someone else do them.

This past year proves that the strength of Two Jackets lies in collaboration. What I think is so unique about this group is that all three of us are storytellers, but we really need to rely on each other so that each member can focus on their particular task. A director can’t do everything themselves. Keeping the vision consistent and the filmic voice strong is the most important thing a filmmaker can do. Allowing oneself to be distracted by other tasks, like shooting, acting, or producing, can be detrimental to the directing process. The film can suffer because of it. We at Two Jackets work well together because we know how to fill in each others’ shortcomings and keep each other focused. For our looming entry to the 2015 48HFP, we are doing as much as we can to ensure that all of our bases are covered. Marcus is focusing on actors, Andrew is focusing on coordinating the crew, and I’m focusing on cinematography. Not only that, but we’re bringing other fantastic talents together to fill in the rest of the gaps (more on that next week!).

Before I leave you, I just want to thank you for watching and for taking this trip with us back in time to film challenges gone by. If you haven’t yet, please take a look at the rest of our Film Challenge Retrospective series, and tune in next week as we explore why we keep coming back for more of these competitions! We’re more excited about this next project than we’d like to admit, and we can’t wait to share the whole experience with you here at TwoJackets.com!

Film Challenge Retrospective: Keeping Up with the Cloneses

Howdy, folks!
 
Thanks for stopping by TwoJackets.com. This is Andrew, here again to share a new story for our Film Challenge Month retrospective series! In this installment, we’re going to delve into the hardest of hard science fiction with Keeping Up with the Cloneses, our entry into the 2014 Minneapolis 48 Hour Film Project.

I was giving some pretty extreme duct tape direction here.

Going into that weekend last June, the Jackets were once again facing a transition: our beloved brother-Jacket, Marcus, was preparing to move to Columbus, Ohio to begin a year focused on his writing. We knew this would be the last time in a while that the three of us would be working together in the same place, so we wanted to make the 48, which is already a special occasion, even special-er. To assist with that, we filled out our team with some of our favorite collaborators (Craig Larson on sound, Sam Johnson on camera, Katie Vannelli performing) and a couple of talented newbies (actress Debra Berger and composer Jack Barrett). For the Jackets’ roles, Eric edited, Marcus wrote and assistant directed, and I directed.
 
Before we get into the real sciencey stuff, let’s watch the film. Please don your safety goggles, hard hats, and oven mitts now…

You can now remove your protective wear. Thanks for watching the film and for following standard safety procedures! (We don’t have insurance!)

As Marcus detailed in his All’s Chair in Love and War article, we carried many excess requirements into that shoot and left most of the assigned requirements in the dust (save for the character). In response to this, we went into 2014 with as close to a blank slate as possible. Two actresses, one house, and the following assigned requirements:

Character: Trey or Tricia Sneaderman, Government Employee
Prop: A bell
Line of dialogue: “I asked you not to do that.”
Genre: Fish Out of Water

With just those elements in mind, we, of course, developed a story involving an inexperienced government scientist creating a bunch of death-prone clones with the goal of teaching one to act like the original person, a swim-shooting dictator’s daughter. (Working title: Putin It Together!) Obviously.

As this and our other work can attest, we are inclined towards complicated, detail-rich stories, even during these time-based challenges. We never intend for this. We actually go in with the opposite in mind: keep it simple, dummies! When Marcus handed me the finished Cloneses script in the witching hours of the night, my weary brain wasn’t thinking logistically. I was pleased with his success in arranging the ideas from our brainstorming, including the required elements, into an engaging, entertaining story. So I approved the script.

However, by the following afternoon, I was beginning to question my judgment.

Wait… How are we going to drop a giant tree branch on Katie’s head? Will that read on camera? How are we supposed to have Katie fall out of a window? Hold it! There’s a DEATH MONTAGE in here?! Ain’t nobody got time for that!

As each of these problems arose, I realized with increasing frustration that I should have considered the reality of these complex scenes when I first received the script. Just because they were possible to achieve, doesn’t mean we had the time to achieve them. 

As a result, several on-the-fly brainstorming sessions were needed throughout the day to essentially rewrite the problem scenes. Every solution we developed harkened back to our original goal: simplicity. We had to look at each problem scene, determine the underlying goal, develop a simpler action, and execute it clearly. A giant tree branch became a large rock. Falling out a window became dying spontaneously. The DEATH MONTAGE… was cut out completely. 

In the midst of shooting the last scene around 9pm on Saturday, Eric, who had been editing along with us as the day went on, came downstairs to drop some knowledge. The cut he had assembled of everything we’d shot so far was only three and a half minutes long. With the scene we were currently shooting, it would maybe reach four - the minimum running time set by the 48. In efforts to concentrate and simplify the story, we had incidentally and ironically over-simplified. I don’t remember being very happy about this. 

Thankfully, as I watched what Eric had cut, I saw how many of the individual scenes were working, but overall the piece felt disjointed. It needed some connective tissue. That was when Marcus got the idea for the dictation scenes. They would bridge the gaps, and we could shoot them in a single camera setup. They would also become some of the best moments in the film. (“I don’t Snead a man! You Snead a man!”)

The rest of that weekend is a blur to me. I remember that the export came down to the wire, and I’ll never forget how Eric thought it would be fun to make a Vine video when the export finished, wasting at least six more precious seconds! I only let him live because we made it to the drop off in time.

A year removed from these events, I still get a little tense thinking about this shoot and all the stop and go and stop and go. Then I watch the film, become very happy, and remember that those breaks weren’t misspent; they just weren’t expected. I’m more open to on-the-fly revision now, but I’m also more considerate of our limitations. I’m very thankful to have had such a patient and flexible team on the Cloneses shoot, who supported the changes - despite the time they took - because we really were improving the story. The way I see it, Eric, Marcus, and company were guiding me as much as I worked to guide them. 

Our extra time and energy was first rewarded at the debut screening. I remember sitting in the Riverview Theater with the audience, watching the film on the big screen, hearing the crowd laugh in all the right places. We couldn’t have asked for a better reaction.

When the film was selected for the Best of Fest screening, the team was giddy with excitement. After the response the film received during the first screening, I couldn’t wait to show it in front of an even larger, more rambunctious crowd. Once again, it didn’t disappoint. Giddiness slowly transitioned into euphoria as the award winners were revealed throughout the night. Best Sound Design (Craig and Eric). Best Actress (Deb). Audience Favorite for our screening block. Best Writing (Marcus). And then…

Best Picture.

I couldn’t process it at the time. When the film’s name was read, it felt like my body was on autopilot for something it wasn’t expected to do. There were hugs and high fives. I stuttered through some kind of an acceptance speech. Eric and I took a selfie with the audience to send to Marcus in Ohio. We went out into the lobby to celebrate with everyone. Then it was over.

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Eric and i really could have looked happier with our mouths way more open.

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Pictured from left to right: Debra Berger, Eric Carlson, Andrew Neill, Katie Vannelli, Craig Larson

As I mentioned in my article for Put a Ring on It, I’ve consciously worked on leaving behind my competitive tendencies. Such thinking was selfish and never got me any closer to the top prize. I have no control over the judges’ tastes and their choices. Rather, my responsibility is to my team and to the story we’re telling. I have to dedicate myself to them with passion, respect, humor, and the belief that we’ll find our way through. The process will always be stressful and frustrating at times, but when I surround myself with awesome, creative people, I know that it’s an experience worth having. That is reward enough.

Though winning 1st place is pretty damn awesome, too!

Andrew

Film Challenge Retrospective: Put a Ring on It

Howdy, Jacketeers! Welcome back to TwoJackets.com! This is Andrew writing...

I’m gracing you with my presence at the moment to continue our Film Challenge Month retrospective with a peek back at the making of Put a Ring on It, our first ever entry into the Minneapolis 48 Hour Film Project.

Put a Ring on It and the 2012 48HFP were an important step for the Jackets. The project kicked off the second chapter of our filmmaking journey by representing many firsts. It was the first film we made after graduating from college, moving away from Moorhead, and finishing our first feature, Limpwings. It was also the first time all three Jackets were doing a 48 together! We were anxious to get back into the game and explore the mythic filmmaking frontiers of our new home, Minneapolis. 

The Jackets roles were as follows: I directed, Marcus wrote and acted, and Eric edited. Joining us behind and in front of the camera were mostly returning collaborators (Kendra Cashmore, Erin Granger, Craig Larson, and Ashley Somphet from 3rd West Ballard; Bill Dablow from A Lutefisk Western; Reed Reimer from Limpwings) and one fresh face, Adam Brant, as our DP. (If you’re in LA and reading this, hire that Brant guy.)

Let’s roll the tape…

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Hubba-what? Whoa! Wait a minute! What’s the deal, Neill? I mean, that was hysterical and cute and amazing and all, but you just made me watch 7 minutes of people flapping their mouths without any words coming out!”

I know, I know. And I feel ya. It’s different and definitely a little scary. I’ll openly admit, I had a similar reaction when we received the following requirements:

Character: R. Thomas, Athlete
Prop: A ring
Line of Dialogue: “Gurgle-fritz doodle-bob?” Erm, I mean: "Have you been here before?"
Genre: Silent Film

I very clearly remember the moment I drew that little slip of paper out of a hat and read, “Silent Film.” My stomach sank and a curse escaped my lips. From where I stood on this earthly plane, I could hear the Film Challenge gods cackle in their golden sky-halls.

I immediately called Marcus. This was the first time Eric and I had him onboard to pen a 48 script, and we were now faced with a wordless film. We also had Bill Dablow shipped all the way down from the Northernmost Dakota, and he wouldn’t be able to deliver a single line with his angelic voice! When Marcus picked up, I told him what I drew and how I was worried about it. I mean, we’re Two “Talkie” Jackets Productions. We rely heavily on our dialogue. Taking that out of the equation would cripple us, wouldn’t it? I could risk drawing a wild card genre as a replacement. What could possibly be worse than silent film?

With all that spinning in my mind, how surprised I was to hear Marcus say from the other side of the line, “Let’s try it,” and my own reply (as my stomach suddenly arose from the floor), “Okay.”

In his Mostly Attractive Monsters article, Marcus focused on an important subject: playing to your strengths. When we decided to go with silent film as our genre that weekend, I initially believed that we were abandoning one of our greatest strengths. What I was forgetting in that moment is that we had many other skills to use - most importantly, our comedic sense and focus on story. Sure, we’d lose dialogue, but we’d still have every other tool to draw upon, including performance, picture, editing, and our knack for using those things together to tell a great comedic story. 

It was definitely an experiment, and a challenging one at that. Any time we saved from not having to worry about sound, we lost while figuring out how to best communicate our story without it. (That and travel time. This was the last year we filmed in more than two locations.)

This experimental route was aided by another monumentally important factor. Up until the 2012 48HFP, I had approached these challenges with a hunger for victory. I entered each contest with my eyes set on the top prize - the best of the best. In 2012 I made a conscious decision to stop thinking like that. I’d participated in enough film challenges at that point to know that that mentality led only to undue stress on the team and myself. Before the kickoff that Friday, the team got together and I told them outright that winning the city competition would not be our goal that weekend; it would be about having a fulfilling experience and doing our best work to tell a great story. 

This perspective paid off. We labored hard that weekend, but we did so together in service of a story we believed in. I watch the film now and see so many moments that I love - the opening introductions with the football card titles, Dr. Pepsi-Coke (no such thing), the pop-up equations, the fridge portal (no such thing), the stupid-adorable meet cute, Marcus shoving a whole banana in his mouth, Craig shamelessly ogling Kendra’s tush, the ZOOMS - all these things emerged from a positive, supportive collaboration. 

Seeing this, the Film Challenge gods must have stopped cackling and started smiling down on us. Two weeks after the shoot, we unexpectedly found ourselves at the Best of Fest, and at the end of that night, the film had won awards for Best Score (Reed), Best Editing (Eric), and Second Runner Up Overall (Yay, Team!).

This was huge for us. There we were, recent college grads at the beginning of our careers, receiving a warm welcome from the community we had just entered. The recognition alone would have felt good, but recognizing the path we took to get there made the experience amazing. It reminded me why I’m in it for the long haul, and what the right reasons are. 

We didn’t squander that warm welcome either. Put a Ring on It paved our way into the local film community. We met other participating filmmakers during the 2012 events and began building a network that continues to grow and strengthen to this day. The team we assembled that weekend continues to collaborate in various ways, too, or long for the next opportunity to do so.

I really hope you enjoyed Put a Ring on It! Check back later this week to hear the stories behind our entries into the 2013 and 2014 Minneapolis 48 Hour Film Projects, as we make our way closer and closer to this year’s event.

Andrew

Film Challenge Retrospective: Level Up

Hey all, Eric here again!

As part of Film Challenge Month at Two Jackets, we’re telling war stories from 48s gone by! You may have seen my retrospective about After Hours, my first directorial effort in a film challenge, earlier this week (and if you haven’t, you should check it out). This is part two of our retrospective series, and it’s all about Two Jackets Productions’ first official entry into our favorite annual filmmaking competition, the 48 Hour Film Project. It’s called Level Up and it was made as part of the 2009 48HFP in Fargo, ND.

I was the team's director, and I learned a LOT about what not to do in a timed competition that weekend. We had a great team assembled, with Andrew producing, oft-collaborators Joey Kramer and Max Heesch joining up as general crew and writer/editor respectively, and our good friends Ashley Somphet (3rd West Ballard) and Parker Shook serving as our leads. This was, unfortunately, while Marcus was living in Toronto, so he was not involved. It's an adventure of a film that had us running around all over Fargo and taught us a lot about how to produce a 48. This is the first time we've posted Level Up publicly, so please give it a watch!

What an adventure! These were the required elements for this competition:

Character: Nicole Nelson, Pizza Restaurant Employee

Line of Dialogue: “You gotta give me something to work with.”

Prop: a laptop computer

Genre: Fantasy

Level Up really showcases how interested we are with injecting sci-fi and fantasy elements into normal, everyday sorts of stories. It’s something that has appealed to us from early on and continues to show its face in everything we do (see: You Only Die Once!, Keeping Up with the Cloneses, Hide My Thunder). Watching it now, I find Level Up very funny, but for a lot of strange reasons. Complex gags, like the fantasy-world-transplant character living in her best friend's basement unbeknownst to him, tickle me right in the funny-parts. However, I can't believe we bothered to shoot an extensive sequence about it considering it has no real consequence in the story.

Lack of focus was this film’s undoing. The brainstorming session was harried by too many cooks in the kitchen, which caused us to produce a script that called for entirely too many locations for a film intended to be shot in just a few hours. The brainstorming took so long, in fact, that Max, our writer and editor, was typing away on the script until the wee hours of the morning. This lack of sleep on Friday night meant that he wasn’t ready to start editing until late Saturday afternoon (a guy’s gotta sleep sometime). And since we were running around all over town shooting until very late Saturday night, the rest of the crew was unavailable to assist with post-production until late Sunday morning. It’s a prime example of how a slow start can have profound consequences on the rest of the weekend. Even with Max splicing away until very early Sunday morning, and Joey providing a few hours of relief editing throughout, we just couldn’t make up that lost time from Friday night. It all came down to the wire.

And we missed it. At just a few minutes before the turn-in time, our deliverable DVD finally finished burning (this was before the glory days of turning in video files via flash drive), and we recklessly sped to the drop-off location. We arrived fifteen minutes late. We were crushed.

The Fargo 48HFP people did screen our movie, which was great, but under the "Late Entries" category, meaning we had been disqualified. This didn't just feel bad because we weren't eligible for awards, but because we had a team of a dozen people working with us all weekend, and we didn't even do them the honor of finishing the project on time. It sucked for the whole team, and I felt completely to blame. It really goes to show how important it is to keep things simple, and above all, to have a finished product done on time, even if it's not as polished as you'd like it to be. Know your workflow before you begin, and know how long Final Cut is going to take to export a DVD (of course, most 48HFP competitions won’t even accept DVD submissions anymore, thank the gods).

Level Up was a filmmaking adventure that showed us that it's possible to overreach in the fevered pitch of brainstorming. We ran all across the city shooting complex sequences, and due to an underdeveloped editing strategy, ended up missing our deadline.