48 Hour Film Challenge Survival Guide 

You should have made it a challenge for yourself to film, edit, and upload this video in 2 days

I thought this was how to survive watching movies for 48 hours

I think you're really finding our style of making the video essays. Your content is really high quality and this is a great example of it.

this is one of the most brutally honest vids ive seen for a 48 hour challenge. like, im feeling the stress from previous years discussed in this. "dont wait till sunday to start editing"; GOD thats the truth.

I'm a playwright and have participated in a whole bunch of 24-hour play festivals, and I'd add a couple of things: 1. Know the limitations of your cast & crew. If you have a terrible actor who can make a funny face, use the funny face. 2. The space often determines the story. For me, that's the performance venue (I've made silk purses out of sow's ears by using the space effectively), for filmmakers, I would consider the sets, or lack thereof, first. 3. Never try to get around the mystery items given to you. An audience delights in how you've used the weirdo things the contest throws your way, but you can tell when playwrights (or filmmakers) just want to shoehorn in their pre-written ideas into a contest. 4. Take time to breathe. For a playwright, it's generally 12 hours to write, and that's almost always overnight. You won't write anything decent at 4am if you haven't slept since the night before. For film crews, I'd imagine the same thing. I love this video. I'm going to send it to all the folks I know who do contests in my field, just because so many similar things apply. Thanks!!

My friend and I in 2016 did the 48 Hour Film Project Nairobi, and we were just doing it for fun. My dad had given us the idea and we were like "yeah two 14-year-olds borrowing equipment that we don't have experience with vs professionals, we might as well just have fun with this." Well we had fun, stretched the time we had a bit far (still managed), the power went out while editing, and my dad was driving us to the drop-off point while we were finishing rendering and exporting. Went to the award ceremony not expecting anything. Came back with three awards, including best film runner up. Wanted to do it again, but the 48hfp seems to have been delayed since then, which sucks because now my friend is in South Korea and won't be around for it. My own advice: Plan your time and try to multitask when you can. Some things may go wrong because they are out of control (like the rain for us), so don't waste that time, use it to edit, charge everything and get things done. And you don't need a massive crew, we got on just fine with two 14-year-olds, some actors and a bit of clean up from an editor. Work with your limitations and be creative!

wait, why did I watch this? I've never even heard of 48 film thingies

As the only friend who doesn't have a car in his friend group. I CRIED when you mentioned making sure everyone has a lift to and from the set!!! Too relatable!

I will never, ever do anything like this, why am I here

i participated 2 years back and honestly the shooting went great just because we put alot of planning beforehand. its the editing stage that f'ed us badly. My tip: GET AN EDITOR WHO ACTUALLY HAS A WORKING PC.

Hey buddy. Just lettin you know I'm an aspiring filmmaker from Springdale AR and I'm comin for ya

I️ got stressed just watching this.

This is great advice! Love the reminder "this is a challenge not a competition". Am in the process of setting myself film making challenges and find myself paralysed by the fear of what I come out of the task with not being gold dust, when actually the intention is to develop and hone my craft. Thanks for the inspiration and tips!

I had to sit through a KFC ad for this video.

What if the person delivering the film gets in a car crash and dies

Yesterday, I wrapped up my first 48. Did the whole thing by myself and delivered across the city with 10 min to spare. Was rendering on my laptop connected to the cigarette lighter in the car. Time management is most certainly a priority only second to following the rules. If your a Premiere guy or gal, I got 2 tips... 1) Use proxies 2) Shortcut commands are your friend.

I feel like my friends and I would just do silly stupid videos that have no chance, but have fun doing it. lol...

Yessss, Austin. Teach me ur way$. Shout at me with ur distorted speaker. Give me knowledge I might never use but would still like to know!

I am a software developer and have never been near film making. But from all the videos that I have seen in your channel. This one is the most closest to my heart. No time no time no time And You have two day and not 2 days and 10 minutes. I learnt these by bitter experience

HE LIVED WHERE I DID THE WHOLE DAMN TIME

1 problem im british

Thanks for this video. I'm about to lead a team for the first time for the 48-hour horror film project in Cleveland next month. I got a crew of about 20 and I have all the paperwork printed out and starting to fill it out. We got a couple locations and a couple base concepts on the kind of film we'd like to make. Fingers crossed. Any other Cleveland filmmakers on here, wish us luck and hope to see you around. -Roman M., le Black Square Productions

Not sure you'll see this but I live close by you. I made a facebook group for actors/actresses down in the branson area of Missouri. There is also a facebook group for cinematographers and everyone else. if you ever get a chance to look at it that would be awesome. The SATO48 team has been using them for the past few events I believe.

Thank you so much for this video, Austin! I'm a 16 year old filmmaker from Branson, and watching this has convinced me fully to do SATO48 2020! I love the little nods to the southwest Missouri area you added to the video for us who live there. Your content has definitely inspired me!

Producing and Directing a film for the 48HFP (Cape Town, September 2017) was the most challenging and rewarding thing I've ever done in my very short filmmaking career. I, undoubtedly, will do anything in my power to partake in more 48 Hour Filmmaking Challenges in the future.

aka: How to survive working for television

Hmmm I didn't even know this was a thing. Informative.

Ah I didn't know what a 48 hour film challenge was I was about to be like I WILL STAY UP FOR 48 HOURS WATCHING FILMS WHERE DO I SIGN UP

I'm here for the jacksfilms thing

I watched a few of the 2017 movies out of curiosity because I guess the festival is over now. No clue where I can find out who won. the website doesn't say. sure seems like all those turkeys have paper-thin skin tho. gave feedback and was called a troll. did you enter?

Lots of great tips here. Although I disagree about waiting until Sunday to edit. If you block everything out accordingly, doing all the shooting Saturday and all the editing Sunday has been my best experience.

Hi Austin

Get one of your friends to film a behind the scenes video of you all making a 48 hour film. Actually, does a 'documentary' like that exist? If so, could someone link me to it?

I have very little interest in film production. I like to design and create art of many forms but films (hell even videos at this point) just seem a little off topic from my main series of skills and interests. Yet I'm here, after ten minutes of a dude describing a film challenge feeling like I just spent said minutes well. Why? Because said dude is Gregory Austin McConnell. No, seriously. You could describe the production and usage of foam mattress covers or something and I'd still think it's a great video. TLDR? Y'got skillz, dawg.

That’s why I’m loosely planning 10 months ahead of the 2020 contest.

Ah I live in Springfield and remember talking to my theatre friends about the challenge a couple times. I dont think they acrually ever did it though lol

The main failing I see happening repeatedly is scheduling. The way I see it, there are 4 phases to a 48 hour production: writing, pre-production, production, post production. 48 hours divided by 4 is 12 hours each. Obviously you won't spend 12 hours in pre so I've found the sweet spot to distribute hours is 11 for writing (should only need about 3 then sleep / simmer / rewrite time), 2 hours for pre, 12 hours for production and about 24 hours for post. Without fail, in practice, I see writing hit a road block and wasting the first 7 hours which eliminates any pre-production and cuts into production. Then, also without fail, I see production blowing past their cutoff (say 8:00) and just take all the time they need. But every minute they go over is a minute they're taking from post. Post can't go over. Post needs 24 hours. 12:00 is an early end time in practice but that's still taking away from post. On my last 48, production went until 7:00 a.m. I needed 24 hours to edit the movie. I got less than 12. The crappy thing is that what people see is a bad edit, never mind that production set post up for failure. Hollywood production schedules allow about 2/3 of the whole production time for post...that's over 32 hours in a 48. Post just needs 24. 12 doesn't cut it. That's 24 hours after wrap, NOT including ingesting and assembling during production. An editor can't tell the story with only some of the footage and zero pre-production. The second biggest thing I see is directors wanting to be auteurs. So they direct actors. They run camera and lights. They help with writing. They help with editing. On my most recent one, our auteur slept less than 2 hours because he had to oversee every last element. That means that his shots were out of focus, the gimbal movements were...wild, the color grade was...interesting and, most relevantly, the movie did not qualify and everyone kind of wasted their weekend. All that said, I've found that bringing these issues up during pre-kickoff meetings is met with blank stares and, "Yeah, we'll do that." Scheduling is important. Actually sticking to the schedule with absolute rigidity is much more important.

Improvisers in the cast ONLY. (Improvisers are always actors and actresses, actors and actresses are not always improvisers) and editors, director, behind scenes people with schedule beforehand. Other than that, ignore everything else here...KIDDING the editor is legitimately the most important part. (But stay up all night Saturday through Sunday to get that dub)

Amazing video that applies to making litererally every video basically! It gives good practical information by skipping all the unnessesary time consuming stuff. Survival guide is indeed the best description for people that are tight on a budget and time.

48 hour film festivals suck. I've worked on four of them and it's almost never rewarding. Finding a good writer who can crank out a solid story within the time constraint is... problematic.

Last night, I tried watching 1 of 2 low-budget, ameteur short films in a private screening at a local community center. Not only was the first film way too loud, but I could hear crackling noises in the background, coming from the film! I wasn't sure if it was the crew having a potato chip snack too close to the mic, or if the audio equipment had reached its limit and was ready to give up on life! Also, those noises were making it a bit hard to focus on the dialogue, which in retrospect really didn't matter too much because the script totally sucked. It was headache-inducing, completely unwatchable, and I had to leave the room. My head was in too much pain to attempt to watch the second film by the same filmmaker. So, future filmmakers, heed Austin's advice about volumne control on your movies. You don't want your audience to walk out with their heads throbbing in pain!

Just did Los Angeles 48HF!!! It was the BEST WEEKEND EVER, if y'all are in the area, participate in LA48 next year!!

This got me really pumped for the Milwaukee project, coming up in 9 days. The last 3 I did were all animated in various ways, and this is my first time in a while back to live action. I'm co-writing, directing, DP, and writing the score because I'm a crazy man. Worth it though, and if my usual luck holds I'll even get a few hours of sleep.

My school's Ethics teacher organised for us something like that, it wasn't exactly 48h, more like, Friday afternoon, weekend and Monday morning, but apart from that it was the same. The first time I overshoot how much plot I can squeeze into 3 minutes but the second time... the second time was just perfect... as far as the plot goes, because my team was utterly useless and my friend at one point wanted to do a *stop motion animation about global warming*, *in one day* (we've been arguing the whole Saturday), needless to say we decided to do my idea instead. I consider that one weekend something that changed my life, it gave me insight into how a film is produced and lit a flame in my heart that fuels the burning desire to be a filmmaker, to tell my stories. One weekend, 3 people with no budget and a mobile phone, constant arguing, stress and work. We won the 3rd place and I was never happier. I was quite baffled when the second team consisted of like 20 people, and the first time (that basically cheated because father of one of them was a professional and lent them cameras) was like 30 people.

I have never done such a thing but there are often so many ideas in my head and just wanting to do them get up and just do it but thanks to my location and my sozial status I dont have people to help me out or who get the meaning behind such stuff that filmmaking cam be a fun thing

Your comment on audio leveling is good, however in my experience, it isn't quite that simple. We avoided clipping as well as checked the levels with headphones, however what we didn't foresee was the sheer power of the bass in the cinema it was shown at. We had a few electronically produced tracks with enough bass that they practically blew out the other frequencies; with headphones it sounded about right; with speakers, the bass was almost inaudible. Long story short, our audio problems went a little bit deeper than volume.

Do you sleep during this thing?

Another tip from last weekend... If you're working with a foley and original music team, be sure that the cuts that you're sending them are not gonna vary in time anymore. You can later add effects, smooth your transitions, do your color correction, but you can't change the timing! Otherwise good luck trying to fix all the music and foley sync at the last minute. It happened to us. The edit guy send us his "final cut", and we worked since saturday, 10 pm to sunday 10 am on that. When we called the team to the studio to wrap everything up, the editor and the director said: "Great job! Now let's look it with the new cut we made, final cut ver. 2!" It was basically another movie... We wanted to kill them all and throw their pieces to the river... the deadline was at 19:00. We finish our render at 18:50, and althought we manage to re-record and re-sync all the vital stuff, the quality suffered in the end.

Thanks mate...good info...Except for one major point...How is it possible to pre-plan a shooting location without knowing, in advance, at least what kind of location will support the film??? At least that information should be provided in advance.

A friend of mine actually got into a pretty awful car accident that caused brain damage driving after being up way too late in a 48 hour film challenge.

Audio is always the challenging part, can't wait till I can afford a new camera and audio stuff

are single people a thing. one man army kind of thing?

this is really cool, thanks man

I thought this was a survive 48 hours in the wild while being filmed challenge lol

our school 48 hour film festival just ended....

We are about to finish ours and we are all first timers and we basically did the majority of the advice

how is your content so good

i did something like this back in secondary school but we had a 5 days do to to school hours subtract a practice and show day we had 24 hours to make a five minute short film.

When I was a kid, I'd see ads that read "24hr recorded message" and think "That's too long, I'd be there all day." Glad the 48hr film festival is not for making 2 day long movies.

This was so informative

And ones again, great video :D

so basically a game jam for movies?

Austin would you have any advice on sourcing locations for even a short film? Honestly if you couldnt do a full scale guide for shortfilms that would be amazing!

Appreciate Video! Forgive me for the intrusion, I would appreciate your thoughts. Have you researched - Saankramer Land Protection System (erm, check it on google should be there)? It is a great one off product for Learning how to survive following a crisis without the normal expense. Ive heard some great things about it and my best friend Jordan at last got amazing results with it.

This was an awesome video! I have participated in these activities and they are very fun!! For newbies, I would suggest a dry run, just to see what would be required, before entering an actual event. Not necessary, but it helps to see what a real event can be like, in advance. (One time, our rental sound equipment was faulty and so our sound went in and out. We didn't know until we were done filming. Our poor editor worked so hard to make what we had work. We got our entry in on time and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.)

I really really wish I could get into filmmaking, but I can't find any likeminded people in my area and most film schools here are either unaffordable or purely about technical stuff (lighting, camera, no writing lessons and so on). Does anyone with experience have any ideas on what I could do?

sooooo can u enter if youre from another country but there for semester ?

This sounds great! Too bad i'm from Spain :(

2:40 thanks for that

awesome video!!! Watching from South Africa 48 hour film fest starts 4-6 September 2020 superr excited !!!!will be using your tips for sure!!!!!!

yep im not trying this

HEY! UM A NEWBIE FROM SOUTH AFRICA, Thanks for the video *^* i thank god for bringing me to this channel before this glorious occasion

my brother won his first 48 a couple months ago and is about to start his second

Which awardwinning movies were made with windowsmoviemaker???

And im just sitting here like-"My film has 5 minutes and i do them for like 8 hours" Am i doing something wrong? And PLS dont look at my youtube films, im not talking about those.

I'm feeling anxiety watching this, it must be a nightmare!

Great video, any advice if my area doesn't usually host any film festival? Should I travel to another area?

Did you sleep at all during these 48 hours? How much and when?

Great to see DVMISSION is logo-checked in your video and what a fantastic guide to competing in 48 Hour Film Challenge. We're going to push this clip next week as we run up to the DVMISSION 2018 challenge launch on Friday 9th March. Your call to action is exactly what its all about, take part to network and practice not to win awards.

my drama teacher did this for their exam i thought she was lying lmao

It might be a stupid question, but.....is it bad or good to take the time to sleep during this ?

We just participated in our first 48 hour project.. competing against veterans with many years of experience, we won best edit and first place overall. All thanks to planning and not sleeping 😂

This reminds me of last year in acting class when we only have one or two classes to come up with a full scene and perform it

Great video. Your voice over and editing style reminds me of SBN3’s “How to be an online voice actor” good stuff.

Thanks for all the great advice, me and a few friends will be participating in SATO48 next weekend. We are first timers so it will definitely be a learning experience for us.

man, game jams, while also hard, at least we get those chances to enjoy ourselves, just, making gams... heh, the late night joyrides to Wawa are always a blast... or do I mean QuickCheck? eh

2:33 if your not American, you won't understand

Austin, are you available for a question?

Yeah I’m no filmmaker I just like your content it’s just really good for some reason

I bombed. badly my first time doing this.

I love this concept. I didn't know that these kind of festivals existed until your video. I just wish I had a group of people to do this with.

Thanks Austin! , I was watching this while i made a 48 hours shortfilm challenge , and i win a trophy. This helps me ALOT

I'm not a filmmaker I love pop culture and you know naturally I'm triggered by this

lmk hehehehe you guys are killing me

We had the opportunity of doing one if you have time can you go and watch it would be much appreciated have a good day

dude there's like 4 of these in the entire country

Hi Austin, Im Austin

Our school did this but it was 12 hours and it was a fully illustrated book

SATO 2021 prep! Thanks for the great video!

has anyone ever done an animated short film? What was your experience?