Five Tips for Making a 48-Hour Film

Making a film in 48 hours is no joke. Filmmaking is a stressful and challenging pursuit, but add the ticking clock and the competitive pressure, and a 48-hour film competition might just be one of your most difficult filmmaking experiences. Trust me, I know. I’ve done it four times, and I’m doing it again this summer.

The Los Metates team during the 2016 48HFP.

Wait, why would I put myself through this so many times? Because the rewards of surviving a 48-hour film competition are numerous and diverse. One of the most obvious: you have a finished short film at the end of the 48 hours! Sometimes, one of the biggest challenges for young, poor indie filmmakers like myself is just getting started, but during a 48-hour competition, you don’t have the luxuries (or rather, traps) of procrastination or perfectionism. If you want to have a finished film, you have to get moving, and the sense of accomplishment – of being able to say, “hey, I did it!” – at the end of the 48 hours is a huge reward.

Plus, who knows, your film might actually be…pretty good?

Our 2018 48-hour team after winning Best Film, Best Directing, and Best Cinematography with WRETCHED.

Out of the four 48-hour films I’ve made so far, three of them are “award-winning.” We’ve won awards for directing, cinematography, special effects, and several special awards specific to 48-hour competitions. Two of those films were featured at international film festivals, but I probably learned even more from making the one that didn’t win any awards than the films that did win. The point is this: it’s possible to not only survive a 48-hour film competition, but to thrive – to build your skills, learn about filmmaking, and create great short films.

How?

I’m glad you asked. Here are five tips that I’ve learned from my experiences making 48-hour films. These tips are no guarantee of success – my next 48-hour film could still be a complete disaster no matter how many tips I write down – but these ideas will point you (and me) in the right direction the next time you find yourself with nothing but an assigned genre and 172,800 seconds to make a movie.

Behind the scenes of Extra Ordinary, our 2017 48HFP film.

1. Tell a Story

I have to start with this one, even though it feels like an obvious statement – but for some reason, a large portion of the 48-hour films I’ve watched over the years have no story. Instead, they turn into collections of images that feel random and pointless, carrying no emotional impact and barely any entertainment value. (Ok, I’ll stop ranting now.) Stories inherently have certain elements: a character who wants something; obstacles that stand in the way of this goal (creating conflict); and typically a beginning, middle, and end (structure). These are the elements of story at a very basic level, and at the start of the 48 hours, you must start with these elements. Otherwise, if you don’t have a story, you haven’t made a film – you’ve made a video, and yes, there’s a difference.

Behind the scenes of Me, Myself & Steve.

2. Prepare in Advance

One of the aspects of a 48-hour film competition that makes it so challenging is the fact that so much has to be accomplished in that limited 48-hour timeframe. However, it’s helpful to tackle certain elements of pre-production before the time starts ticking; by doing so, you’ve just freed up more seconds inside of the 48 hours for more important concerns. The most obvious piece to work on beforehand is assembling your team. For my 48-hour films, I’ve had a core team assembled well in advance, composed of both crew and actors (and people who can do both!). That way, once the time starts, I have people ready to get to work, and because they are flexible and multi-skilled, I can assign them to any number of various roles, based on what the project needs. In addition, other elements of pre-production can be (mostly) prepared ahead of time. For example, you can scout locations, assemble some general props or costumes, and make sure your technical gear is ready to go. In the case of locations, props, costumes, etc., some of this might have to change depending on your assignment – but if you have a great, visually interesting location at your disposal, you can probably make it work with any genre you receive. So find a good location before you have your story!

The canyon setting of our 2018 48HFP film WRETCHED.

3. Understand Your Limits

This tip is one that I learned by not following it. For my second 48-hour film, our concept was the story of a guy who starts a new job at a company where everyone else has superpowers, but our hapless hero is an ordinary human. My grand vision was to include all sorts of interesting CG effects for the superpowers of the coworkers, and with the right amount of time we could have actually pulled it off – but we were making the film in only 48 hours. Ultimately, I simply ran out of time in post-production to finish all the special effects, and the final product looked rushed and unfinished (needless to say, this is the one 48-hour film that didn’t win us any awards – the version you can watch online is a version that I later cleaned up and re-edited). The point? Don’t attempt something that you can’t pull off in 48 hours. I am a huge advocate of ambitious ideas, but the 48-hour time limit is a real limitation that you must work within. Don’t let this destroy your creativity, but do make sure that what you’re writing at the beginning of the timeframe is something you can actually finish by the end.

The cast and crew of Extra Ordinary.

4. Schedule Your Time

In order to make your deadline and submit your finished film at the end of the 48 hours, it is critical to be aware of how far along in the process you need to be at any given time. In other words, how much of the 48 hours are you budgeting for writing? Pre-production? Shooting? Editing? You don’t want to still be writing the script 24 hours into the 48 (yes, I’ve been there). At the same time, you have to be flexible within your schedule. On Wretched, we were still shooting the film at 1 AM Sunday morning, with the film due 7 PM Sunday evening. I knew though that with the story we had created, the editing process was still doable in the remaining time. Staying on track but remaining flexible enabled us to shoot exactly what we needed without cutting off our production time in favor of getting to the editing too early. Make a schedule, but also remain aware of what you’re facing in the remainder of the time and whether you have the freedom to go overtime in certain parts of the process.

The cast and crew of WRETCHED.

5. Make Something Entertaining

My last tip actually circles back to what some people call the first rule of entertainment: “Don’t be boring.” As you’re figuring out what story you want to make, ask yourself the question, “Why would people want to watch my film?” The answer needs to be something specific; just because you made it in 48 hours (impressive as that may be) does not mean that people will automatically care to watch it. Even if you have a great story, can you point to one or more specific elements of the film that have notable entertainment value? To give a few examples, here are the “entertainment elements” of the four 48-hour films I’ve made.

• Me, Myself & Steve featured a visually cool cloning effect used for comedy, as well as a host of wacky characters for our hero to interact with. The entertainment value was entirely comedy, essentially asking, “what crazy person is this poor guy going to have to speed-date next?”

At the awards ceremony where Me, Myself & Steve won three awards.

• Extra Ordinary featured a similar entertainment proposition – wacky characters, this time with superheroes and more special effects. (Regardless of the fact that trying to do this in 48 hours wasn’t the greatest decision, the base entertainment value of comedy and spectacle was definitely there.)

The comic book end credits of Extra Ordinary.

• Wretched featured a thriller premise that grabbed you from frame one – what if you found yourself handcuffed to a dead body? How would you react? No more wacky characters here, but instead a compelling and even frightening concept that demanded a resolution. The audience was hooked from the very beginning.

Behind the scenes of shooting the party scene of WRETCHED.

• Blaze featured an intriguing concept – the idea of having an inner discussion made literal and visual – but more importantly, it featured the most striking visual of any of our 48-hour films, a large bonfire that we filmed at night. Because of the story set-up that led to the bonfire, the scene was visually and emotionally captivating as the “epic climax” of the film.

Filming the start of the fire scene of BLAZE.

None of these examples is perfect by any means – there are ways I wish I had improved the story and entertainment value of all four films – but the point remains. Why should people want to watch your film? If you can’t answer that question in a satisfying way, there’s a good chance you’re heading toward creating a snooze fest, or even worse, something without a story at all. So, don’t be boring!

That’s a Wrap

So there you have it, my tips for creating a great short film in only 48 hours. There’s no doubt about it – tackling a 48-hour film competition is a challenging prospect, and the actual 48-hour period itself will test you as a filmmaker, no matter what level of skills you possess. But what better way to grow in moviemaking, to recognize your strengths and weaknesses, to hone your storytelling skills, than by being forced to focus, lose all distractions, and apply everything you know about filmmaking in one intense, weekend-long push? My growth as a filmmaker over the last few years is largely thanks to my 48-hour experiences, and that’s why I’m doing it again this summer. I’m still a young, poor, indie filmmaker who mostly doesn’t really know what he’s doing, so another insane 48 hours will help me to improve just a little bit more, and if you’re in a similar stage of filmmaking, it can do the same for you too.

The WRETCHED team accepting our city-winner award at Filmapalooza 2019 in Orlando, FL.

The BLAZE team after placing second in the 48 Hour Film Race at CWVFF 2019 in Franklin, TN.

A Personal Note

Without doubt, there is uncertainty and more than a bit of anxiousness as I head toward the 2019 48 Hour Film Project. But there is one final thing I’ve learned from these competitions – that God likes to work in my weaknesses. For each of our three films that ended up winning awards, I truly was not expecting to win anything, and as I tackled each film, I always felt unprepared and inadequate for the immense challenge I was facing. But each time, the Lord worked and caused His glory to shine through all the more dramatically. The upset victory of Wretched at the Albuquerque 48HFP in 2018 was one of the most astounding moments of my life up to this point, and a big part of that was because it was also one of the most vivid demonstrations of God’s providence and grace in using me and my team to proclaim His truth. This is the one tip I’m really putting at the top of the list as I head into the 2019 48HFP – that keeping my eyes fixed on the Lord will allow His power to work through my flaws. No matter what goes down as to victory or defeat, I’m confident that it will be exactly what the Lord wants for me, my team, and Los Metates Studios.

The official poster for WRETCHED.

For More

If you want to keep up with our 48-hour filmmaking adventures, be sure to check out the Los Metates Studios Facebook and Instagram pages. And if you’re interested in being a part of our 48-hour team this summer, send us a message – we’d love to have you! Check out the Contact Us page for more.