Sleepless Weekend a Success

It’s Tuesday and we’re still trying to catch up on the sleep we traded this weekend for making a movie.  It was the 48-Hour Film Project and our 5th year leading a team.  We went into the weekend with two goals –  1. have fun and 2. turn a movie in on time – both of which were a success.

So, here’s a little recap of our fun, film-filled weekend.

Friday night, we met at the Crooked Pint to receive our required elements and draw our genre out of a hat.  We  drew ‘Drama.’  Since our goal was to have fun in a short time frame, writing, filming and editing a drama didn’t seem to add up as ‘fun’ but more melancholy, which the weather has been doing a pretty good job at accomplishing on its own [where's the sun?!?].

It was a pretty quick decision for us to throw it back and draw from the mysterious wild card genres.  Upon going for a wild card genre, we ended up with Found Footage.  A unique ‘genre.’  The 48hfp defines it as “…a genre of filmmaking in which part of a film is presented as discovered film or video recordings…”

The required elements for all the teams were as follows…

Character	Bobby or Betty Bulmer, Farmer/Gardener
Prop	a lamp
Line	“She told me it’s a secret.”

Once we had our genre and required elements, we met up with our fabulous writers back at home base to dive into the brainstorming process.  This part of the weekend is so fun because creativity is just flowing.  It’s a nice reminder that we need to gather as a group more than just once a year.

After three hours of brainstorming we narrowed all our thoughts down to five main ideas, and from there picked our horse and we were off to the outlining stage.  About 1am, we felt good about our outline and then started piecing together the story into a script.

At 4:30am our DP and Art Director/Wardrobe Stylist arrived to discuss shot list and determine the props and wardrobe needed.   With less than 5 hours before call-time, there was a lot to discuss and determine.  By 5:30am the script was complete and our writers went home to get a few hours of sleep before returning to set to play the roles they helped create.

9:00am we were on set, unloading equipment and setting up for a long day of production.  But thankfully, our team has amazing energy, great attitudes and were ready to have a fun day making a movie.  We were very lucky to reunite with so many favorite cast and crew and had the opportunity to work with a few new people, as well.  Stellar team!

Martini shot was at 9:30pm and we were loaded up and out of our location by 10:45pm.  We returned to home base with our editor for the last leg of the weekend – post.  We were able to catch a few hours of sleep, while our editor plugged away at the footage.

At 5am there was a changing of the guard.  We got up, while our editor got a few hours of shut-eye.  Sunday morning one of our actors stopped by for a VO session, our composer arrived to home base to continue working on the musical compositions he started Saturday afternoon, and we worked with our title designer to create the credits.

At 6:30pm we started our final export and sat and watched the yellow bar move slowly across the screen.  We checked the film, got it on to two jump drives and were out the door by 7:05pm.

We arrived at the drop-off location with 8 minutes to spare!

We had a great time with a great team of people and turned the film in on time – success.

Thank you so much to the entire cast and crew!  You were amazing.

Writers: John Burgess, Tom Reed, Maggie K. Sotos, Logan Martin, Ashley Martin, Tom Sorenson

Cast: Julianne Medcraft, Logan Martin, Maggie K. Sotos, Tom Reed, Shawn Boyd, Tim McVean, Foxy

Director of Photography: Jesse Meehl

Editor: Joe Filipas

Composer: Jesse Richardson

Art Director/Wardrobe Stylist: Erica Wollmering

Make-Up Artists: Miki Sautbine, Victoria Blumentritt

Key Grip: Jonathan Miller

Sound Engineer: Chase Hentges

Boom Operator: Tom Sorenson

Credits/Title Designer: Steve Gagner

Script Supervisor: Ashley Martin

Still Photographer: Scott Traczyk

Behind-the-Scenes Videographer: Alexi Diem

Special Thanks: Ruth Balbach, Adam Ruben, Colin Drummond, Brian + Sue Drummond, Cindy + Steve Schaack, Mike + Jenni Schaack, Paul Hicks, Yellow Tag

Here are a few more behind-the-scenes stills from our photographer Scott Traczyk.

How Many Takes to Make a 10 Minute Movie?

Answer – 309!  In this fun little video, you can watch the slates, actions, cuts, etc for all 309 takes we did to make The Butler Did It.

And, after being on our to-do list for nearly 2 years, we are finally able to cross this off – the behind-the-scenes look at the process and good times had on the set.  It was definitely fun to walk down memory lane putting this together.

*SPOILER ALERT – this video contains scenes from the ending of this movie.  If you haven’t seen The Butler Did It and would like to before any spoilers, click HERE, otherwise…Enjoy.

Here We Go Again!

We think it’s safe to say we have a slight addiction to filmmaking.  We are officially registered for the 48-Hour Film Project again this year.  The sleepless-creativity-filled weekend takes place May 31-June 2.

Our team is almost fully assembled, we’re getting ready to put some locations on hold, and then we wait.

Friday May 31 – the adventure begins!

OUT Promo Complete

After a cold day of dancing in 5 inches of fresh snow, and hours of editing, the promo video for the OUT Twin Cities Film Festival is complete and ready to promote!

Thanks to the entire cast + crew for dedicating your time and talents to this project.

Don’t forget to check out the OUT Festival Schedule.

So, show your pride, we will see you inside.  And please, enjoy the show!!!

CREDITS

Starring: Maggie K. Sotos

Brides: Jennifer Prettyman and Rachel Christine

Grooms: Landyn Banx and David Wasylik

Grandpa and Granddaughter: Michael R. Morningstar and Jocelyn Morningstar

Friends and Families: Alison Graversen, Paul Graversen, Libby Burkitt and Irina Kennedy

Directed and Produced by: Kristin Schaack and Justin Schaack

Concept by: Kristin Schaack + Justin Schaack

Lyrics by: Maggie K. Sotos

Music by: Joseph Ye

Director of Photography: Jesse Meehl

Edited by: Justin Schaack

Make-Up by: Miki Sautbine

Logo Animation by: Steven Gagner

Special Thanks: Chris Durant, Donovan Harmel, Cindy’s Floral Creations, Deborah Fiscus, Marissa R. Schon

Film Fest Promo Wrapped!

When we scheduled our shoot day for April 20th [four weeks ago], we never thought there would be 5 inches of fresh snow and record low temperatures.  If we had, I can assure you, our concept would have taken place inside!

However, despite the snow and unreasonably below average April temps, the sun was shining and so were our talent and crew for our production on Saturday.  We spent the day with a fabulous group of people in front of St. Anthony Main Theater filming for the OUT Twin Cities Film Festival promo.

We’ll be diving into the edit this week and will post the final video soon!

Busy Week: Festival, Meetings, Concepting and Prep

‘Busy’ is definitely a highly used word in our vocabulary.  And last week did not disappoint on that front.

Since Justin’s decision to go freelance, he has been meeting with many people around town and already working on two projects that he is writing and directing.

For our joint projects, we’re in the concepting stage for two fun videos.  Both of which are in the early stages of development, so details will have to wait for now.

Where the Deer and the antelope play.

After a week of meetings, brainstorming and writing we capped it off with the Dakota Digital Film Festival in Bismarck, ND.  It was the second year of the festival, so although small in size, they did not lack in professionalism, organization and a beautiful theater.  The films screened were very well-done and the festival organizers and volunteers were wonderful.  It was fun screening The Butler Did It to a new audience.

We are diving in to another full week.  Prepping for a few shoots coming up in the next couple weeks, as well as starting to assemble our team for the 48-Hour Film Project.  Ready, set, go!!!

A Week Worth Celebrating!

What a fabulous week we had.  It was full of changes, announcements, production and post.  Celebrating was in order!

This week we were notified that Coming Out is an official selection in the 2013 OUT Twin Cities Film Festival.  The festival takes place May 29 – June 2.  Final schedule/screening times are still to be determined.  Admittance into this festival is very exciting for us.  We are so happy to share our film that entertains, while providing a message of love and a family’s support and acceptance.

As many of you know, Above-the-Line is not our full-time jobs, although we often put in 40+ hours a week on our AtL work, we do in fact have day jobs.  This week, two big changes came on that front.  First, Kristin received a promotion in her current role.  Much of her responsibilities will remain the same, with the addition of more strategy and oversight of the TV productions.  The recognition accompanied with this promotion is so exciting. Second, Justin made the difficult decision to leave his role as a writer/director at Best Buy and pursue his directing ambitions full-time in the freelance world.  It’s a leap of faith, but the network, commitment, talent and dedication are there, so anticipating great things!  This will also allow us to focus more on our AtL projects, as well as explore the opportunities to be hired as a directing team on a larger scale.

Saturday we wrapped day 1 of production on the third installment of the Youth Teaching Youth educational video series.  This video focuses on peer pressure.  Day 1 was filming the Teen Teachers.  Days 2 and 3 [yet to be scheduled] will be the two short films featured within the video.

And finally, we delivered our MotionPoem!  We have been concepting, planning, producing and editing this project for the last 6 months.  It was a wonderful and creative stretch for us.  Most of our films have been in the realm of comedy.  It was fun for us to explore another side of our storytelling.  Our MotionPoem, Girls Overheard While Assembling A Puzzle, will screen on April 24 at the Walker Art Center.