Last weekend I participated in the 48 Hour Film Project in NYC. Basically, each team gets 48 hours to write, film, edit and submit a 4 to 7 minute film. You draw a genre and are then given a prop, a line of dialogue and a character name and have to work it all into your movie.

We had:
Genre: “Film De Femme” (strong female character)
Prop: Tennis Ball
Dialogue: “Are you sure?”
Character: Ethan St John, President of ___

I proudly present our movie, “Margot”:

Our creative process was:

Friday 10pm -- 1am: 8 people shooting around ideas for a film, agreeing on an idea then story arcing it

Saturday 1am -- 3am: 5 of us who were going to be writing and acting in it and the director wrote a first draft

Saturday 3am -- 5am: 3 of us wrote a second draft while sending everyone else to sleep

Saturday 7am: Start setting up for filming and cast the roles, go through the second draft and make additional changes with the whole team

Saturday 9am: PA’s, PM’s and DP show up

Saturday 11am -- 11pm: Film the different scenes

Saturday 11pm -- Sunday 10am: Edit the first cut

Sunday 10am to 1pm: Give notes on the first cut and re-edit

Sunday 1pm to 7pm: Fix up the sound, make final touch ups, export and submit the film

I wound up not acting in it, which was okay with me because there was so many other things for me to do. I wound up sleeping 5 hours in two nights.

My favorite part of this is how 5 comedians came together and wrote a dark movie that has very little comedy in it…

Last thought: I highly recommend everyone pick a “48 Hour Challenge” where you have 48 hours to complete a task that would otherwise take a really long time (write a short book, make a music album, paint ten paintings, etc). You’d be surprised at how efficient you can be when you’re on the clock.

These one minute spoofs are inspired by the many pharmaceutical commercials out there today. There’s four parts, and each can be viewed separately but there is a natural order that I’ve put them in below. I co-wrote this script, filmed and did all the editing. Feedback welcome.

Meet Matt The Spokesperson Avenger:

Matt Does Not Make Shareholders Happy:

Matt’s Available Ladies:

Matt Will Not Be Vacationing In Africa:

iMacs are sweet. I realize this isn’t news to anyone but me. What can I say? I”m slow.

I’m borrowing a Mac for the next three months and I started messing around with video editing today. I recorded 3.5 minutes of nonsense while my room mate was hanging photos in the apartment and turned it into (what I think is) comedy gold in under thirty minutes. Windows Movie Maker would have taken me a good two hours or more and been a huge pain. This is my long way of saying I’m now a huge fan of Apple.

Enjoy the video:

I previously published the script for this sketch and after failing at organizing a video shoot, I decided to go ahead and create a mock-up version using photos.

While I think this version is funny, I think it could be much funnier if shot using real video footage. I have an HD camera but need a few actors, a narrator (I’m no Mr. Moviefone!) and someone better versed at editing. Contact me if you’re interested in helping out.

I’ve written a script and story boarded it below. I know it will be much funnier if I ever get to shoot it with real actors and someone who can sound like a more convincing announcer than I do.

Feedback is always appreciated.