BackPocket's 48 Hour Deadline

By Christopher Rice

BackPocket Entertainment is an organization that produces short films for exhibition in film festivals. Recently, “A La Carte”, the first short for the company, was wrapped after a year-long battle of persistence and determination. “The footage is fantastic,” I would say, “Hughes is doing a great job lighting this picture and it simply wouldn’t come together with out Katie.” But I found myself overwhelmed with exhaustion from lack of communication between key players in the production. One example that really stumped the production was when the main security contact at the location broke his cell phone and I no longer had direct contact with him. Because of these technical difficulties, I ended up wrapping the shoot early and ultimately cutting the short together as an experimental film. Hopefully it will be up on the site shortly. Lesson learned … shoot as fast as possible!

Today BackPocket is doing just that; with the 48 hour film project. The 48 hour competition is an international film challenge and travels to Los Angeles this June where it will meet with the registered film producers and begin the drawing of the elements. The elements will consist of a certain character, prop, genre, and line of dialogue that will be the make-up of every team’s entry. Members of the BackPocket team, including Actress, Katie Christiansen – who’s represented by AdAstra Management and the Dangerfield Agency, from “A La Carte”, and myself started brainstorming ideas for the competition the other night and came up with some strong leads. Although details can’t be revealed, the team has a crime drama in its sights for the competition and we're keeping our fingers crossed for an adaptable genre.

Among the creative team, Jacob Sparks, Mel Novak, and Kevin Nieman are all on board to provide their writing talent for the project and will meet around 8:00pm on June 23 to collaborate. Sparks and Nieman are currently working on “Colours”, a short animation film, for BackPocket that will start preproduction after the summer. Matt Sutphen, comedic actor/flight instructor, will star with Katie in the short and provide his ability of quick improvisation to fill the bulk of the dialogue. Rob Hashemi, associate producer, will direct the EPK and provide the secret location that will add tremendous production value. I have set a schedule for the 48 hour production so that the team is well-paced and on time. After the big brainstorm on June 23rd, the material will be written and finished by the early morning of the 24th. Later that morning, the shoot will begin and end that night. From there, I'll cut, score, and deliver the project to the producers of the competition.

I'm on a roll with this project and the one thing I suggest every producer out there does ... is set their own dead-lines. I know, I know, it's hard because you don't know how long things take but you HAVE to do it. Its something I didn't do on "A La Carte" and that shoot took a year! It may be overwhelming to look at the empty calendar and have to decide when to shoot - afterall, you need at least a week to prepare the script and pre- PICK ANY DATE and go with it. If it helps, tell everyone you know so that there's pressure to go through with your project. Close your eyes, point at the calendar, and call everyone that can help you.

BackPocket, like the team, is still growing. The organization plans to not only produce short films but also develop feature-length screenplays, host screenplay contests, and even supply industry news. BackPocket makes it a goal to strive on creative material while maintaining an artist-friendly environment where artists of all kinds can work on material together and see it come to life on the screen.

Here's what we made!

Gold Fishing

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