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I blogged a few weeks ago about participating in the Living Arts 24-hour Video Race with my friend Michael Champlin.  Bad weather forced the event to be postponed until Feb. 11, so last weekend we finally got to make a film! I had so much fun hanging out with Mikey & his wife, Lisa, and making friends with the rest of the team – Ben Champlin, Connor Wingfield, Matt Beard and Jessica Kouns. Our group got along well, which made the experience really enjoyable. I think Mikey and Matt were happy to be shooting the film on a DSLR; it’s something I know they want to do more of and I look forward to seeing other things they shoot together.

The Video Race competition had several requirements. We had 24 hours to make a film (five minutes or less) that had the following elements:

• Theme – “The World of Tomorrow”
• Line of Dialogue – “Devil May Care”
• Prop – Yo-Yo

We could have no more than 8 people on our team, and we could only use material we’d created in the 24-hour time period.  It was a major challenge to say the least! We didn’t win the competition, but our whole team was really proud of the film and I think we turned in a strong contender.

It was certainly a learning experience. I’d never edited a film before – let alone come up with the idea & execution for one within a day. There are certainly things I would want to fix if we had more time, but that’s part of the experience of being an editor – sometimes, your time runs out. I do hope to get more opportunities to edit short films in the future.  It’s much different than doing documentary-style or non-fiction pieces, and I think it makes me stretch my creativity. I certainly have a deepened respect for aspiring filmmakers now, too.