48 Hour Film Project 2023

From Friday the 29th of September to Sunday the 1st of October, four of the year 11s – Ruby, Rebecca, Dean and myself took part in the 48 Hour Film Project.

The 48HFP is a competition where you are tasked with the challenge of making a film from script to screen in just 48 hours. This year was my third consecutive time entering into this competition and it really seems like third time’s the charm. The weekend was mostly smooth sailing and a great deal of fun.

The competition gets underway at the kickoff event where each team draws two genres from a hat and then has to make a short film in one of those two options. Everyone also gets assigned a character with an occupation, a prop and a line of dialogue which must appear in your film. The Filmlink Studios Team (ISCT’s representation) drew romance and mystery as our genres and decided to go with romance (tragic romance though). Once the event was over we raced back home to get writing.

Saturday is all about filming. We had the great experience of shooting outdoors in serene and beautiful locations such as the beach. We made lots of amazing memories that day, such as almost being washed away by the tide, and fake birdwatching (whatever it takes to get the shot). Before we knew it it was dark and time was running out.

Sunday seemed like an extension of Saturday since 3 hours of sleep was all we had to separate the days. At this point stress and emotions were running high. Rest was low. Sugar and caffeine were consumed, to get editing done. I would say that our biggest learning curve was then, when we realised just how different voice acting is to screen acting, but nevertheless we persevered and produced a film that we are all very proud of.

Snowman in the Sand will be screening at Ster Kinekor this weekend and afterwards will be placed onto the Filmlink Studios’ YouTube channel (link below) for everyone to watch.

https://www.youtube.com/@filmlinkstudios

– By Retaya