Scene One...Take two...Action!

It's 6:30 p.m. on Friday, February 6, 2009, and Director Aaron Missler comes sauntering into Alden Library room 250-- the 48-hour Shootout has officially begun for The Legion Production Company.

Each group entered in the 48-hour Shootout sends one person to a meeting at the South Pole on South Green to represent their production company. That person will return to their group with three things: a genre, a prop, and a line. This year, The Legion received the genre of horror; their prop was a spoon and their line was, "You won't do it." At this moment, the meeting commences as ideas are being bounced off the walls due to loud voices and everyone's extreme love for his own idea. After four hours of debating, the group finally settles down to hammer out a script; the movie must be five minutes long.

The idea was for Matt Karp to play the lead as the boyfriend who is delusional and sees a vision in a spoon of him murdering his girlfriend, played by Margie Pandora. There was blood and screaming and extreme sweating, mostly due to very hot lighting, and the movie was filmed in just 14 hours! Editing commenced while the filming was still in progress. This editing process, lead by Editor Zach Small, took the team over 24 hours to complete. They were just in time to turn it in before the 6:30 Sunday evening showing. Team Legion was satisfied with how the film turned out and stood proud with victory cigars outside on College Green before the public showing.

The 48-hour Shootout is a toiling weekend that allow telecommunication majors to show off their movie-making skills. It begins at 6:00 Friday evening of the first weekend in February and ends that following Sunday at 6:00 p.m. The event ends with a three and a half hour showing of all the completed films. A first, second and third place winner is chosen by a panel of judges, led by Athens Video Works' fearless leader Keith Newman, at the end of the showing. This year, 32 production companies entered, but only 27 turned in a finished film.

There was a lot of toiling over various aspects of the film. Of course the editing takes time, and a whole lot of patience that I definitely do not have, and getting the right shot is aggravating. It took several takes of each scene before Missler and Director of Photography Joe Kell got a shot they could both happy with. But perhaps the most fun and time consuming part of filming was making the blood with corn syrup, water, and red food coloring. It was necessary that the blood be the correct color and texture to seem convincing! Once the blood was made, it was funneled into a tube that was then taped to Margie underneath her clothes. There were three little slits where the tube ran across the right side of her neck and shoulder, which is where the blood came out when Producer Josh Beebe blew through the end of the tube. While Matt ran a knife across Margie's neck and blood spewed onto her skin and down her clothes, her smile never wavered and she remained as still as brick house. It was a messy, sticky adventure for the team...but mostly for poor Margie who had to remain in her "blood" stained clothes in order to film the final scene of the movie. (If you are interested in making your own fake blood, check out this wiki.)

The group did most of their shooting in Missler's University Courtyard apartment, but the office scenes were shot in the AVW office on the third floor of the Baker Center. I was with the group during the second day of filming beginning at 1 p.m. in Baker and finishing up around 9:30 p.m. at the apartment. The lighting made everyone sweat, the lack of sleep made the whole crew easily aggravated and most of the crew forgot to eat, but all-in-all they had a great time and made an amazing student film. I thoroughly enjoyed sitting off to the side and watching the magic happen.

Although The Legion did not win any awards, but I had many people telling me that this was the first time a horror shoot out film had ever made them flinch. The film had an interesting plot and great student acting; Margie's makeup during the ending of the film was absolutely terrifying and completely unexpected, which made people jump out of their skin. Check out The Legion Production Company's film: Trapped By Spoon

(All pictures posted in this blog were taken by me unless noted otherwise.)