Credits – Producer, Co-Editor

Camera – Canon XL1s

Every filmmaker at one time or another should do a 48 Hour Film. This is where you are given a specific character, genre, line and prop that need to be in your short film. And then you have 48 hours to write, shoot edit and export your film.

We built our cast and crew from our previous films and met the week prior to brainstorm a little.  We decided to shoot it at Demetrius Parker’s house, since he had a huge backyard with a barn and wooded area. We thought it would give us the greatest amount of options no matter what genre we got. We came up with a couple of ideas, but ultimately decided that we didn’t want to spin our wheels on a bunch of ideas and then have us get a genre that we didn’t even think of. Which actually happened to one of the other groups in the contest. They prewrote scripts for 6 different genres and got a genre they didn’t write for. (which is against the rules anyway, but I digress.)

When all was said and done, our genre was: Science Fiction

And everybody was given the following mandatory items:

• Character: Tim Tate – a Gay Glass Sculptor extraordinaire 
• Line: “This is the absolute last time.”
• Prop: Fire Extinguisher

Eric worked through the night Friday to get a script ready and we all met at Demetrius’ house at 8am. Once the script was completely finalized, we walked around the property to get an idea of how and where we could shoot each scene. With that down and a shot list created, I was no longer needed. Since it was going to be a mad dash to get the film made in 48 hours, I took the job of editing and decided I would work through the night putting it all together. I slept through the day and got the call around 6pm that the shoot was getting close to wrapping up.

I went and picked up the tapes and headed back to editing.  I spent a majority of the night combing through the footage and cutting it all together. By 9 am the next day I had a version I could bring over to Eric’s house for him to finalize.

He spent a few hours moving things around and adding some stuff, including the music and some sound effects. After some issues with exporting, we were finally able to get it out to the 48 hour film office just in time to beat the clock.

Here is “The Caretaker” – A cyclical and alien evil forces a ritual involving a clash of good and evil. A weary Tim Tate decides to make it the absolute last time he partakes in the event, but who will be his replacement and ensure that duties are performed next time?