ZachBG Posted May 14, 2004 Posted May 14, 2004 Well, at long last--well, only two days, but that's as long as it took to make the darn thing--our animated entry in the 48 Hour Film Project for Washington, D.C. is available on AMFilms: http://amfilms.hash.com/search/entry.php?entry=744 A larger version (640x480, 33MB) is also available: http://www.shipbrook.com/mpegs/DuckSauce.html Just to remind everyone, this was created from start to finish--writing, acting, modeling, animation, rendering, editing, and music--in about 53 straight hours by a team of ten: six people local to D.C. and four others scattered throughout the Internet. We were given a series of elements we had to incorporate (the genre was ours alone, but the rest were given to every team): Genre: mystery Prop: rubber duck Character: S. Baxter, professional photographer Line of dialogue: "You know I love the _____." It was screened at the American Film Institute's Silver Theater (Silver Spring, Maryland) on Wednesday May 11 to thunderous laughter and applause. Although it was handed in past deadline, and is therefore not eligible to go on to the Best of City or Best of Year competitions, it is eligible for an Audience Award (the audience's favorite among the films shown at that particular screening--about ten films, I believe). Interestingly, one of the other teams' leaders came up to me afterward and said he knew none other than Martin Hash himself, from way back in San Francisco. The world is not small, it's microscopic. A fuller account of the screening, for those who are interested, is here. We'll be polishing up some of the rougher spots and releasing a Director's Cut later in the year (hopefully before SIGGRAPH). Hope y'all enjoy it! Quote
modernhorse Posted May 14, 2004 Posted May 14, 2004 Zach - Man oh man, let me be the first (well here anyway) to heartily congratulate you and the team. I can't believe how much you accomplished in the time given you !!! This is further proof story is king. Very well written and directed. People - take the time and download this film. You won't be disappointed. I cannot wait for the directors cut. My hat is off to you all (and the sun is burning my head). Great JOB !!!! Doug Quote
pugless Posted May 14, 2004 Posted May 14, 2004 Hahaha, still can't believe we pulled this off, let alone have it shown on the big screen! Damn we rule! MOhahahahahaha, Plus I figued biggest laugh = winner even though we didn't make it quite on time Quote
johnl3d Posted May 15, 2004 Posted May 15, 2004 Great job I'm quacking up ...lots of creativity Quote
Parlo Posted May 15, 2004 Posted May 15, 2004 Awesome - I love the style and the story has it all! If I was wearing a hat, I'd take it off to all of you. I'm really looking forward to the Director's cut (and if you don't do a version with a commentary I'm gonna sulk)! Quote
KenH Posted May 15, 2004 Posted May 15, 2004 I haven't seen it all, but so far, it's all brilliant! You should get first place! Great story too. Quote
zacktaich Posted May 15, 2004 Posted May 15, 2004 Great job! . The best damn film the contest has ever seen. And probably an unprecedented feat when it comes to animation. (no bias whatsoever) Quote
zacktaich Posted May 15, 2004 Posted May 15, 2004 Funny, it's no longer on the front page of A:M films... This is such a big thing. I don't get it. Quote
aaver Posted May 16, 2004 Posted May 16, 2004 What can I say?! Simply amazing! Now, please let us know what you could do in 48 days... Quote
zacktaich Posted May 16, 2004 Posted May 16, 2004 Someone did the calculation for how long it would take us to make a feature film. I don't have the number right here, so I did it myself. It's a pretty simple algabraic proportion. 48 hours = 2880 minutes. It would take us 38,400 minutes to make a 100 minute film, or approx. 640 hours, or a bit less than 4 weeks. The only problem I see is the national coffee shortage that is guaranteed to happen afterwards. Quote
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted May 16, 2004 Hash Fellow Posted May 16, 2004 I'll put away my train wreck helmet and say I'm proud to have been a small part of it. It was very flattering to be asked to join in, particularly since I had not demonstrated the ability to do more than four or five seconds of animation in a week. Perhaps Zach was just desperate. None-the-less it fulfilled a long-time goal of mine that I might some day good enough to be asked to work on someone else's project. I can't help but think that if we had roped in even just one more animator we would have made the 48 hour mark. It was exciting trying. Fence-sitters: you missed out. I'm sure some people will sniff at this because it's not ultra detailed and textured 3D. Screw them. I'm very impressed by the script Zach et al. produced in no time at all. I know people who are actually employed as writers who couldn't crank out a genre parody with all the elements in two months, never mind two hours. And I am most envious that Zach has such a creative entourage of friends that can contribute to his projects. My friends think they're being creative if they replace their avocado refrigerator with a stainless steel one. Quote
Iham Wrong Posted May 16, 2004 Posted May 16, 2004 Congratulations on completing something so ambitious and seemingly impossible. More amazing is the completeness of the story. Hat's off to the team coordinator, script writers, sound engineers and editors. Now I have a questions. How did the team learn to work remotely from an FTP in such a short time? P.S. The title and role credits are great. Quote
ZachBG Posted May 17, 2004 Author Posted May 17, 2004 Thank you to everyone for the kind comments! How did the team learn to work remotely from an FTP in such a short time? Well, I'm not sure; except to say that it was very easy to create an FTP server with Mac OS X, a router, and a DNS alias service. For some reason I have three Macs now; two of them were running A:M in OS 9.2, and the third, which can only boot into OS X, ran the FTP server and my editing software. Jeff Lee whipped together a neat utility for the PC which monitored a local directory (where A:M was saving Targa files he rendered) and sent them directly to the FTP site as soon as they were created. In most cases, it was faster to render and send from his PC than to render locally on my Macs. Only one team member couldn't access my FTP site (still not sure why), so we also used the blog as a holding area for projects, models, storyboards, etc. And it's possible that we didn't make the deadline because of travel time, in a sense; we did the writing and sound recording in one place and the animation work at another (my house). They were about fifteen minutes apart, and I was particularly ticked when I forgot the AC adapter for my laptop (the FTP machine) and had to waste a half-hour driving to the recording house and back to pick it up... Quote
Will Posted May 19, 2004 Posted May 19, 2004 Very clever guys! Clearly you are a creative and talented group. I hope you do well in the contest. One question... how long have each of you been using AM? Will Quote
ZachBG Posted May 19, 2004 Author Posted May 19, 2004 One question... how long have each of you been using AM? As I used to say, I've been a newbie since 2000. Not sure about everyone else. Quote
Godfrey Posted May 19, 2004 Posted May 19, 2004 As I used to say, I've been a newbie since 2000. So have I, actually. Sometime in December, IIRC. Quote
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted May 19, 2004 Hash Fellow Posted May 19, 2004 how long have each of you been using AM?I think i got V4 in 1997 maybe, but just fiddled with it. I used V5 quite a bit, but then Flash happened so I somewhat sat out v6,7,8,and 9. Last year, looking at a long Christmas break with nothing to do, I decided to give it one more try and have been dabbling with it since then. Quote
Will Posted May 20, 2004 Posted May 20, 2004 Zach, Was this an official contest or something? If so, is there a web link where we can review the other entries? thanks, Will Quote
ZachBG Posted May 20, 2004 Author Posted May 20, 2004 It's not so much a contest as a film festival--more details can be found on their web site, at http://48hourfilm.com/, but in brief, the Project comes to a bunch of cities worldwide, the films are made during a specified weekend for each city, all completed films are screened at a local theater, and one film is chosen as "Best of City" and it goes on to compete as "Best 48-Hour Film of the Year." It started as a local festival in Washington, D.C. in 2001. As for places to view the films, that's left to each individual filmmaker, but the Project does sell a best-of DVD for each year, IIRC. We finished our film past the deadline, so we're not eligible to win anything except the Audience Award (essentially a popularity contest, taken from surveys filled out at each screening). AFAIK, that won't be announced until the Best of D.C. screening on June 11. Quote
Will Posted May 20, 2004 Posted May 20, 2004 Zach, Where can we view the other entries to the contest? thanks - Will Quote
Godfrey Posted May 20, 2004 Posted May 20, 2004 Where can we view the other entries to the contest? Unless the other filmmakers put their works up on the Web, there isn't a place to do so. And just in case there's a misconception, we were (to my knowledge) the only animated film entered in the Washington DC segment of the project. All the rest were live-action. Quote
zacktaich Posted May 21, 2004 Posted May 21, 2004 One question... how long have each of you been using AM?'bout a year now. How did the team learn to work remotely from an FTP in such a short time? It was really easy, I was surprised to find out that it wasn't a server or anything, just a direct connection to Zach's laptop. 3D world has been alerted about Duck Sauce, though I have seen no reply to my email yet. Quote
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.