NOLA Film Scene with Tj & Plaideau
A podcast about acting, filmmaking, and the improv scene in New Orleans.
NOLA Film Scene with Tj & Plaideau
Michele Bousquet: How We Do a 48 Hour Film Project
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Ever wondered what it takes to create a short film in just 48 hours? Michelle Bousquet talks about her book which details how to do complete a 48 Hour Film Project.
Michele's Book on Amazon: https://a.co/d/iqQKn54
Follow us on IG @nolafilmscene, @kodaksbykojack, and @tjsebastianofficial. Check out our 48 Hour Film Project short film Waiting for Gateaux: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5pFvn4cd1U . & check out our website: nolafilmscene.com
I'm Michelle Bousquet, the author of how we Do a 48-Hour Film Project, and I have a podcast called how Hacks Happen, and I am so excited to be on NOLA Film Scene with TJ and Plato. Oh my God, I can't believe I was chosen. All right, I'm okay.
Speaker 2:Now let's go Welcome to NOLA Film Scene with TJ and Plato. I'm TJ and, as always, I'm okay. Now let's go. Welcome to NOLA Film Scene with TJ Plato. I'm TJ and, as always, I'm Plato. Okay, welcome, michelle. How are you?
Speaker 1:I am doing great. I'm so happy to be here. How are you doing?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're good, so glad you're here. We've got a lot to unpack with having you on. I read your book, bought it last night. I read it cover to cover. I could not put it down. I think you nailed it. I'd love it if you would tell the audience a little bit about your book, about the 48, and you have some fantastic advice.
Speaker 1:Thanks, yeah, the book is called how we Do a 48-Hour Film Project, specifically named that way because everybody does it differently. Our way is not necessarily the best way, but I've done oh geez, I lost track. I've done a lot of weekend competitions, a lot of short three-day seven-day and certainly a lot of the 48-hour contests. I think I've done five at this point and they're just always a blast. I always have a great time and learn so much and meet so many wonderful people in the networking. Like that's how I met you guys was because we were both in a 48 earlier this year.
Speaker 2:Separate 48s.
Speaker 1:In separate 48s, that's right.
Speaker 3:I think you said something really important in your book. If you make it about trying to win awards and trying to be the best one there, you're going to be miserable. But if you have fun while you're making it and just try to learn and have a good time, then you're going to turn out a good product, and I absolutely agree with that.
Speaker 1:Yes, 100%. Like you, can't be endless to win. For one thing, judges be judges and they have their own opinions about stuff, and there are times when there was a film that I thought was so good it wasn't. Maybe the production value wasn't great, but it had a lot of other really great things about it. Somebody's first time filmmaker and I thought for sure they would win certain things. No, not a thing. And then I often do not agree with the best film. I could say that too.
Speaker 2:Dun, dun dun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, self-included. Sometimes we get nominated for best film, sometimes we don't. It has to be about having fun, otherwise people get very tense. We have to win, we have to win. People are tired. They're maybe just eating whatever is on the crafty table. You don't tend to eat terribly healthy during the 48-hour weekend. You eat whatever's around. Everybody just gets on each other's nerves and I've heard of friendships over the 48, which I hate to see that happen to anybody. It's just, it's a film. It's a short film. Why are you fighting with each other and arguing? So if you make it about having fun and learning something, it's so much fun, so much fun.
Speaker 1:Well, you guys' experience. What was that like.
Speaker 3:I wasn't sure what to expect, going into it.
Speaker 1:This was your first one.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 1:For our listeners. It was your first one.
Speaker 3:This past one, waiting for Gatoe, was my first one and I was expecting to get there and not leave until Sunday. No-transcript, nobody was grouchy or cranky, everybody got sleep, everybody ate, but we were efficient. We moved from one thing to the next and then on Sunday, the DP did the editing. Brian and I edit for the podcast, but it's not the same thing as editing for film. He does it for a living and he was just boom, boom, boom. Very efficient with putting things together and the big thing is making sure you have that done and you addressed it in your book. You got to have a time to stop. If you're not done by then, you're not going to make it, because you have to allow yourself time to get it uploaded. I personally had a very good time on that project. It was, I don't know. Everybody involved was great, we got along and we had fun.
Speaker 1:And your film. I remember how much fun it was and how funny you guys were. For those who did not attend this year, it was Waiting for Gato right. Which was the required character was a postman named Jake Gato. These guys played a couple of coworkers Like. To my mind, you guys were like the two old guys on the Muppet show that are up in the box and they're just talking smack the whole time Sadler.
Speaker 3:Waldorf, that's right.
Speaker 1:You guys were outside like, just you know, this job stinks and I don't like it here and so-and-so thinks he's going to win the award again. You're like, you were just so funny. You guys won some stuff though. Right, you were nominated. You guys, both were nominated for Best Actor.
Speaker 2:Best Supporting.
Speaker 1:We were Best.
Speaker 2:Supporting and we both lost. They tried to pit Nola Filmstein against each other, but we didn't let them no-transcript light sound, and that made it so much better.
Speaker 3:We weren't having to rely on somebody that might drop out at the last minute to bring the field recorder and the boom mic or labs or whatever we're using. He was a self-contained unit and that really made a big difference. There's always going to be somebody that drops out last minute and you just have to be prepared to improvise and use somebody else. For us it worked out.
Speaker 2:Right. It was a great streamlined process on our 48 together. I had done one before, which was a nice one too. That was Contingency. A couple of years before there's hit men looking for witnesses, you know what I mean. So I had a prop gun in my face and my fellow actor who was the hit man shoved the gun so hard in my face I popped a few blood vessels. I wasn't pistol whipped and it helped me get in the scene. I'm exaggerating a little bit. It was all good. So for me both 48s are plateaus in my acting and what I mean is I reached that next step. And then when we did our seven and seven, that was even more so.
Speaker 1:Oh, that one was off the hook.
Speaker 2:Thank, you Ah thank you.
Speaker 1:We did, we were there too. I don't know if you remember this.
Speaker 2:I didn't make it to the screening.
Speaker 1:Oh OK.
Speaker 3:I didn't. I wasn't able to make it either.
Speaker 2:All right, we did a little film on a boat and I couldn't participate, so I wrote a script and sent some people off and it was a new experience for DP first time DP and, if I can interrupt you for a second 48 hour film, is you get your information on Friday and have to have it done by Sunday and turned in? The one we're talking about, the seven and seven, is make a seven minute film in seven days.
Speaker 1:So you had a week we did the seven and seven as well. We went to the screening and I was the film that you guys did. You guys did for the seven and seven. I was like, how did that was? It was phenomenal, it was a Western for those who have not seen it, and it was just so. The sets were like were you guys on somebody's film set? How did that happen?
Speaker 3:Here's how that worked out. So I live rural and we have a rural postal carrier and she's friendly with everybody on the route. I happen to know that she has horses Her and her family have rescue horses, so they have around seven or eight and they're on about 30 acres. So she had done actually background and horseback riding in a previous film in a bigger production and I asked her if we could film there and she was like yeah, absolutely Hick. Jeremy and I were the only ones that had extensive, I would say, experience riding horses. We got Brian on a horse. He didn't fall off. Matt wasn't experienced with riding, so the lady that owned the property rode a horse. She was kind of a stand-in for him out at a distance.
Speaker 1:That was the other thing too. I'm like how is it that all these people can ride horses? Anyway, go on. It's the magic of movie making.
Speaker 3:That's right. So we filmed those scenes there on her property. But then part of the rules, we had to have something from Abita Springs, a specific thing, in the shot, so we filmed the last part in the middle of Abita Springs. They have a pavilion in the museum. On the outside looks like it could be a train platform, so we use that as both sides of it as a train platform and that's how we got that requirement in to get the scene from Ibida.
Speaker 1:Wow, I did want to speak a little bit to the preparation stuff because I realized I haven't really talked that much about what's in the book. You guys know, when I sat down to write this I was like, all right, let's start with, we'll do it kind of chronologically right, what you do before to prepare, then Friday at seven, what happens Then? What happens after? We write the script on Friday night, we shoot on Saturday and we edit Sunday. That's kind of the basic thing. There's a little bit of overspill. We might do a couple pickup shots on Sunday, we might start editing a little bit on Saturday, but that's kind of the flow of it. And when I sat down to write it out, I realized I think the preparation is like half the book, because once you get to Friday, it's like write the script. Okay, you sit there and you.
Speaker 1:You know and I talked a little bit about our process and the process of some other teams, I know, but there really isn't much more to say about it. This isn't I'm not going to teach you how to write a script, there's other books for that but you write the scripts and then you shoot on Saturday and that's you shoot. Like I talked a little bit about that and about how we didn't use a slate board the first couple of films, and then someone said, hey, we should use a slate board and it's like so, stuff like that. There's a quote from Alfred Hitchcock where he said that all of the creativity and all the genius and all the work is in the free production. And then production is actually kind of boring because you're just going through the steps that you planned out in the beginning.
Speaker 1:And I was like, wow, so it is the preparation. I didn't realize how much preparation we do, but, yeah, I start thinking about it two or three weeks ahead of time. I belonged to an improv troupe and I'm still friends with a lot of these people. That was how we did. The first one is I was like, hey, why don't you come over and we'll make a film, and started me off on this whole journey.
Speaker 1:I say who's available this weekend, and so we know that we have these people. But you're right, people drop out, and we had three people drop out out of the 15 that we had, which usually is only one or two, and all right, we're going to write the script. And so when we sit down to write the script, we are writing for those people that we have available and we know for sure are going to show up. That's really what it comes down to, and I also, when you said locations, for the most part I do the locations ahead of time. I do not do them on the day. We tried that once and it was pretty bad. It's one of the films that is not on my YouTube channel.
Speaker 3:Getting the waiver sign could be an issue if you wait to the last minute.
Speaker 1:And also that's the one that I talked about in the book that we're one of. It was a woman who used to come and do makeup with us. She's moved away, so unfortunately not part of the team anymore. She's one of the team anymore. She's one of the ones who dropped out in June as well.
Speaker 1:She worked at this store down in the French Quarter and for like three films in a row she said you know, they said we can film at the store, and she seemed to really want to film at the store, and I think that was more her than the owner of the store. So she got the form signed and then we showed up and they said well, you can only stay for two hours. There can be only two people in here. No hours, there's going to be only two people in here. No, we're not going to turn the music off. It's like oh plus, that was also one where the one of the lead actors had had a big fight with the sound person a few days earlier, so they were just in a terrible mood. Whenever the person would put the boom up, the actor would like clow her and her. And oh, it's just, it was.
Speaker 3:That was a terrible shoot, shoot did y'all end up still filming in the store? How did you handle that with the music playing with copyright stuff?
Speaker 1:we finally got them to turn the music off, but the director of photography on that film, which I'm pointing to myself I happen to be the one pressing the button on the camera was so flustered by everything else going on we didn't have time to use the clapper. We just just had to just go on.
Speaker 1:I did that thing where you press record and you're really turning off the recording when you think you're turning it on, and so everything I recorded in there was like outtakes, and managed to catch one thing that happened in the store, so we just ended up not using it. I often do these things where I'll put something in the script which is like, say, a series of interviews, like, say, interviews after a crime has occurred or something has happened on the news or something, and that gives me what I call the accordion script, where, if more people show up.
Speaker 1:We have more actors show up, we have something for them, they can have their little line. And if less people show up, well, there's only two people interviewed by the news.
Speaker 3:That's brilliant, by the way.
Speaker 1:And if less people show up. Well, there's only two people interviewed by the news. That's brilliant, by the way. Well, thank you, it was born out of necessity. I wanted all my actor friends who showed up to have something, you know, have something that they can do. It was just part of that. It was an interview type thing and that guy just didn't end up being in the film for very long. Just the one take that I got. That was right.
Speaker 1:Or when, after I also signed one person who's kind of in charge of getting everybody to sign their release forms, then this person was kind of sitting around doing nothing and I wish I had had her start writing up the credits. That's another thing is getting that nice, perfectly spelled list and also asking people how they want to be credited is another thing, because sometimes someone they run sound and they also I don't know their script supervisor too, or something like that. It's like all right, what are you trying to get a future career in? I'll list you at. Whatever that is. That's another question that needs to be asked of people. Because, yeah, it's just on your film. I'm assuming everybody wore more than one hat, right?
Speaker 2:yes, yeah, just an, just an actor.
Speaker 1:When did you guys join your crew stuff?
Speaker 3:Well, so we all took turns holding the boom. I have a teenage daughter. She came for part of the day on Saturday to just help PA. She is an actor, she does plays and musicals and she's in Nutcracker. This year For the seven and seven. She came and stayed the whole time and PA'd the whole time. She also did a little bit of Boone, a little bit of grip, because he was self-contained. He's used to filming by himself our DP for the 48. So I mean it was mainly just helping with setups and moving stuff, right, brian.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:We didn't have script supervised. We didn't have a lot of the main crew roles assigned, we just have script supervisor.
Speaker 1:we didn't have a lot of the main crew roles assigned. We just kind of picked up what we needed to do yeah, that's cool yeah, but you know, technically you ran sound at least part of the time, so you, you know you couldn't boom.
Speaker 1:Operator tj sebastian yeah, so that's the kind of thing that I'm saying like usually on our films. Now dave runs sound, but that's another thing about the 48 that I hope came across in the book is that even though Dave knows how to run sound, there's times when there's somebody hanging out who's not doing anything.
Speaker 1:It's like here you want to run sound and they're like no, they get to do it for a while and it's like it could break or he'll start taking the footage and renaming it, you know, naming the files for editing, which makes life a lot easier, but people get to try new stuff and it's a very low. Like you know, if you screw up it's not a big deal.
Speaker 2:Low stakes.
Speaker 1:Low stakes, there we go.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the. Everything that I really enjoy seeing is when someone is trying out a piece of equipment. They've never gotten to do this, so if they've never been on a film set, that can be really interesting and fun. It's usually okay. But I've had people say things like wait a minute, they think you shoot in sequence, like if there's two people talking you're going to shoot this and then shoot that and then shoot this. It like no, we shoot all of this person and then all of this person.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, I'm completely fascinated by every aspect of the filming process and I try to watch and listen and pay attention to what's going on. I don't know, I kind of geek out a little bit because I just like learning that stuff. I like watching how they do. How do you know? How do you know how to set that up, how do you know where to place that light? Well, I mean, it's experience. I try not to get in the way, but I try to watch and observe and and pick things up. Same here.
Speaker 1:I was an editor in the 1980s, before we had non-linear editing like the two little dials and if you screwed it up, you know it's always a thing.
Speaker 1:So I learned editing back then and I was eddie editing uh, court depositions. It's very boring, which is kind of good because it's like the subject matter is not interesting at all. I was able to focus on the mechanics of what I was doing and from there I edited a lot of actors reels. So I had that background and I don't know. I made some films when I was young. I took film class when I was a teenager and made a few films along the way with my parents' Super 8 camera. Then I was working in like the 2000s.
Speaker 1:I was living in New Hampshire and there was a local guy who would go out and shoot commercials the commercials for you know he had your major channels on TV and then there were like the three local channels. So there were commercials that were aired on the local channels. So the quality was like and nobody really cared about the quality. So the two of us was just show up, we had one camera, he was the director and I did the makeup and wardrobe and calmed people down.
Speaker 1:I worked with talent a lot because they would do things like I remember shooting a commercial for a gym and they just decided they would just have people who usually are at the gym show up to be in the commercial. Well, they're like, oh my God, I'm going to be with camera. They're nervous and I'm like you look great, you look fine. One woman was worried about her skin and I put foundation on it. I guess she had never heard of foundation, I don't know, but she was so happy that her skin looked feel like. I just remember moments like that. So there was a lot of working with film and stuff. But, yeah, same way, I was always trying to learn more about different ways of doing things and I was also trying things, some of which worked and some of which didn't. I tried to green screen for the longest time and I finally figured out what I was doing wrong nice, I might hit you up for some advice on that.
Speaker 3:I'm trying to figure it out myself. It's kind of tricky.
Speaker 1:It's tricky.
Speaker 3:One of the things is it's got to be pulled really tight right or be no wrinkles or anything.
Speaker 1:Yes, and you can't be standing very close to it, which means that, depending on how wide a thing you're doing, you need a pretty big screen. People have some that's right behind their head, but also if you have a lot of hair on your face or head. Tj see, brian would be easier to green screen than you would, because the little hairs tend to get lost and it looks really awful, which is why you see so many people in green screen stuff wearing a hat or something like that.
Speaker 1:You have a nice hard edge for it to screen against. Yeah, there's, and it's still, it's still hard, like I've done it a few times, but the lighting also has to be really even on the green screen. Do you know how we did our backgrounds for the police station?
Speaker 1:I remember hearing that y'all used a screen it was rear projected interesting wow so we have a normal projection screen that you would use to project film that you're watching, whatever, but it does both front and rear and we have a high prosumer and projector, so it does a nice resolution and dave taught himself unreal engine. So he builds backgrounds.
Speaker 1:While we were discussing the film, before I wrote the script, I think he went into his office and built that set, because it's very simple, it's just a wall and he had some stuff stuck up on the wall and then he lights it kind of nondescriptly, so you don't have to worry about matching the lighting too much. It it was sort of very basic and then we just projected that up there. So there was the one scene that takes place in the police station where Jake is getting interrogated, which is the first and last scene in the film, and then there's another scene where Jake goes to the police and is trying to get them to listen to him, and that was a different. I think Dave found an Unreal Engine game that takes place in a school or a prison or something. It's just a lot easier than green screening. It's a lot, lot, lot easier.
Speaker 3:It's limited, but it's the job done very first job the day I turned 16 was working at a movie theater and the screens are very expensive. We used to go to the Rocky Horror Picture Show and I've been to the old school ones where you throw stuff because they've got a sheet or something up there that's not going to damage. You do that to a real silver screen, you get anything on it on the outside and it's completely destroyed. Wow, so you project it from behind on a silver screen and then you're filming from the front. I guess it has to project it backwards, right?
Speaker 1:There's a setting.
Speaker 3:I'm trying to visualize it in my head. How big is the screen?
Speaker 1:It's only about it's something that someone with a big living room might put in their backyard, or something like that.
Speaker 3:Ah, okay.
Speaker 1:And it came with a frame. It was like 200 bucks on Amazon. I tried to get a bigger one. That is the biggest one they sell and we tried to get that material and we were going to just make something larger because it's very limiting. You either have somebody from the thighs up or you can actually adjust it so it sits on the ground or lower. So we have done ones where we had people sitting and we had the backdrop for that, but you can never capture their entire body, it just isn't big enough to do that.
Speaker 1:So it's good for certain things, but we were trying to get one that was like much larger and we were going to mount it, do stuff, but the fabric that silver fabric, like you were saying the price went from $200 to like I can't remember how much it was, but it was. It was like no, we're not paying that. I don't remember what it was because we weren't even really sure if that was going to work. Because we have this projector it's also a short throw, which means it only needs to sit like a couple of feet behind the screen to project this 10 foot image. So we needed that as well, because we didn't have enough space for what would normally be there and for the rear projecting. It's just when you set up the projector you have a little remote and under the settings you just say we're doing rear projection and the projector takes care of it and you can also flip it upside down on some of them.
Speaker 1:On this one, though, we found we couldn't that one. No, we had a different projector. We were trying to mount it. We tried all kinds of stuff. We like our rear projection setup. We tried mounting it to the ceiling, because the other thing is look at these front projections, because it's such a short throw. It also projects like it doesn't project straight ahead. It projects on an angle away from itself. So we could do it in the front and not have people step on it.
Speaker 3:But it's easier to have it in the back. Is it hard to light the subject with it being rear projection like that is it? Is it complicated to get your key light and stuff right with the screen?
Speaker 1:yes, that's the light spill. We found that we had to use really bright lights to light people to make them match well enough with the background in terms of brightness because the background was very bright. So the first few films we did the lighting was really off. But it's all part of an experiment.
Speaker 3:So by the time y'all got to the 48, y'all had it. It seemed like y'all had it dialed in. I thought it looked fantastic.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks time y'all got to the 48, y'all had it. It seemed like y'all had it dialed in. I thought it looked fantastic. Well, thanks, this year we did. You know I was. I said this in the book too that whenever I had a shoot that had a lot of drama, the film just isn't good. It's just it's for whatever reason, it's just because who's how do you say what a good film was like? I thought butterfly was a good film, but I didn't expect it to get this response from people, and a lot of people seem to really have resonated with it or had had some things that they noticed about it or whatever. Whereas I did another this other film, hair today, gone tomorrow with the park ranger. That same year you did yours that we had all kinds of weird drama going on on the set and I still thought it was a pretty decent film, but something about it was just it fell flat and I think like nobody remembers that film From the screen.
Speaker 1:Not a single person remembers it. I think it just it felt awkward. It was an awkward film because we were all a little on edge, I think, with the drama.
Speaker 2:And if everybody's synced, even if you miss something like, hey, what if I do this? Or hey, my character would do that. Oh yeah, what about if TJ's, you know, like everybody's thinking the same lines, trying to create the same story, you can work off of each other. If people are trying to get their own thing in and worried about their divaness or whatever the hell it is, it interrupts the creative flow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's pretty much sums it up because, yeah, we did have a, we had a diva on that one and a lot of other things.
Speaker 2:I got you. Well, let's hit with one last question. While I was reading, loved every part of the book, totally agree with everything, and this is not a disagreement. You were telling people to do more 48s to get in practice, to learn the filming, especially editing. I say for those people go out with your phone and just make films every weekend and then go back to the computer and keep editing. I mean you don't have to wait for the 48.
Speaker 1:That's right, so I totally agree with that.
Speaker 2:I felt like you would, because I believe that's what you were saying, not like you need to go fix the book and say what Brian said.
Speaker 1:But see how we do a 48, not how you do it.
Speaker 2:But you're an excellent teacher and lots of experience. So the call to action, what would you say to inspire people, whether they're already filmmakers, storytellers or they've never done this and kind of the bugs starting to bite them like, hey, I could do this too.
Speaker 1:What would you say to them to get them off the couch and into our world? I would say, just start with something. And you were saying, just go out and shoot something and edit it. But if you're doing it alone you might give up or you might start to second guess yourself like, oh, this isn't any good or whatever.
Speaker 1:But one of the things that I did before we did our first 48 is I held this thing at my house called Soap Opera Sundays, where everybody would come over Anybody who wanted to come over and we would write, shoot and edit a soap opera episode in three hours. So you had to get it done. We would spend some time spitballing ideas and we would go shoot. And this is again. We were talking about people learning about how film works and how you shoot things. You know unseat into time, whatever, and then I would sit down and edit it.
Speaker 1:But I also had everybody who was in it saying where is it? Where is it? I want to see it, when can I show it to my family or when can I see it? So it made me finish it. So if you get together with a couple of people and do it, I think you're more likely to continue on and also having that other person to help you when you're second guessing yourself and thinking that can I say s-u-c-k on your mark oh, yeah, yeah okay when you start to think that you suck and, believe me, everybody thinks they suck at some point.
Speaker 1:I'm sure some of the films I've made I'm like, oh my god, I'm terrible, this is awful. So you're gonna feel that way, but you have to keep doing it anyway, because that's how you get better at it. And the first thing this is the other thing is the first thing you make is going to be terrible. So get it out of the way now, and then the next one will be better and the next one will be better. That's what.
Speaker 3:I have to say to them In your book you even mentioned starting out you stress use what you have, don't spend a bunch of money. Film it with an iPhone. And you're right. I mean even Apple does commercials filmed completely with iPhones. The quality of them these days is so incredible. You don't need all the fancy, expensive, commercial-grade filming equipment to do this. You can start with your phone and upgrade as you go. Probably the biggest challenge is the lights.
Speaker 1:Oh, I was going to say sound.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, you're right, you're right.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean lights. There's light outside. That's right, you know it's free.
Speaker 2:If you have no money or experience and you want to learn, this YouTube University is a great place to start.
Speaker 1:Oh, yes, yes, 100%. I also think that on YouTube no-transcript going to be natural light and the person who showed up from our troop, who's the director of photography I didn't know this. He shows up with his Sony I was going to shoot all on my phone, it's going to be terrible, I didn't care and he shows up with his Sony a6500 and he, just like, shoots commercials. It's one of his hustles is shooting commercials and music videos. So I said we're shooting outside.
Speaker 1:He's like that's a terrible idea. I'm like I don't have any lights, like what are we going to do? And he said I have lights, so he pulls these lights out. But anyway, we shot it all outside and that was one of the things we ran into. It's like you can't, you have to look in the direction of the sun in order for us to see your face. So what we came up with was the actor would sit there with her eyes closed for until we get everything set up, and then I go action and she opened her eyes, say her line and close her eyes again.
Speaker 3:Sorry, I'm rambling on about filming. No, no, no last question no, that's what it's about.
Speaker 1:But that's you know, we made it work. She got nominated for Best Actress on that one, so that was really cool, made it all worthwhile. Because I think when we were done she was like I know, because it was hard, it was hot, it was August, she was wearing a cowgirl outfit, ready to faint, sweating, so it was uncomfortable. And then she got nominated for Best Actress and she's like when are we going to do it again?
Speaker 2:It's wonderful when people ask how do you do what you do? I want to do what you do, and then some people take off and then other people just even on a 48, how much we have to put ourselves through. It's not, you know, it's not ditch digging, but it can be strenuous on yourself, or yada, yada, yada.
Speaker 1:It's not easy and that's a great lesson. I actually started out doing a bunch of acting, but then I realized how much work it is to be an actor and I was like I'm going to do directing now, which I know we might think is crazy, but I actually feel a lot more comfortable directing than acting. I still do some acting. Oh, the other thing I wanted to make sure I mentioned is that I do mention this in the book as well is if you want to get started, a great way is to join somebody else's team doing a 48 hour film project, and the way you do that is you show up to one of the mixers they have a lot of mixers before the actual weekend and if you show up, your clothes are clean and you don't smell.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you're reasonably easy to get along with, because that's the other thing is that you're going to be in each other's pockets for a whole weekend. So you want somebody that you know you're going to be able to get along with, and everybody I've seen show up at one of these it's this I'm looking for a team to join, and I'm in film school and I'm studying this or I've been making little things on my phone and I want to join a team. They find a team because there's always people looking for someone and they'll be happy to have them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, don't be the guy that's standing outside with a sign, like you're scalping tickets to a concert, looking for a team Go into the mixer and meet people and network and see who you get along with and who's the right fit.
Speaker 1:If I was at one of these mixtures and somebody came up to me and kind of barged into the conversation and said, excuse me, I'm trying to find a team to join, I would not be offended in the least, because that's one of the reasons we're there, and I might even start talking to them. I tend to be a little bit aphedemical of the diva. I am a little more like picky, I guess you could say, about who I bring on my team. Also, with the story team, when you guys were talking about how you all wrote it, we also didn't have a good experience with having everybody there. It was too much, it was really overwhelming. So I just ask people who wants to be on the story team, and we usually get four or five people and that's that works fine. Some people don't want to show up till Saturday, so that works okay. But yeah, just go to the mixer, be a little bit brash.
Speaker 2:Be nice.
Speaker 1:Be nice, I really want to do a 48. Like, who's going to argue with that? I really want to do a 48. I want to be on someone's team. It's like no one is going to get mad at you for saying that.
Speaker 2:Right yeah, and sometimes the administrators can help you find a team even beforehand. Join the Facebook groups, join the, follow the website all that good stuff.
Speaker 1:The other thing I wanted to say, though, is that you say I want to join and I'm an actor. For me, that's a hard pass, because everybody does everything. If you just want to come and act, yeah that everybody wants to just come and act. But if you want to come and say they're a good cook or it's like I could be crafty, or say they really want to learn crew stuff I'm an actor and I really want to learn crew I might pick that person. But if they just want to be an actor, I'm going to give all the acting parts to my friends and my crew Sorry, not to some random person who shows up. So and I think I mentioned this in the book too when someone says I want to be an actor on your team, I say great, what crew position can you fill if they don't have an answer?
Speaker 1:if they're not on my team. Yeah yeah, my podcast is how Hacks Happen and this came about because I was teaching a cybersecurity class, which is another life of mine. I wanted my students to understand more about certain kinds of hacks and it was easier to make like a nice little one-hour podcast explaining it and people started listening so I started doing more of them and now I've gotten into talking about scams a lot, Like I know much more about romance scams and pig butchering scams I don't know if you guys know what that is Lots of different scams. It's been around for about four years and I love doing it and to come listen to how hacks happen and learn to be safe. I've actually had people tell me that they were able to avoid a scam because they listened to my podcast, which is what makes me happier than anything in the world.
Speaker 2:Don't get no better than that.
Speaker 1:And what about social media? Do you want to plug any?
Speaker 3:of your socials. I am terrible at social media. It's all good, it's okay.
Speaker 2:Well, that was going to be one of the things I tell you on Friday night. Get everybody social too, if not before, because I'm the guy I take all the selfies. I want to tag you in it. I want to share.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Get permission for behind-the-scenes shots.
Speaker 1:Even on the 48. I always ask the director can I share this? You know, yeah, I remember that. Actually that is how we met at the 48 and at one of the mixers and you're like, let's take a picture together. I'm like, all right, and then you sent it to me. I think when I said to Dave oh yeah, I'm going to be talking to Brian Plato, who's that and I showed him the picture, he's like oh, yeah, that guy, the guy taking the pictures.
Speaker 3:The running joke is always that we met somebody in a circle exercise. But now the thing is kind of do you have a picture with Brian Plato? And most people are going to say yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, alicia came on. I think I'm in every one of your posts on your site, cause we had taken classes and worked on films together. It's, I find it fun. I grew up, you know, my dad had a darkroom and people are like, oh, I feel so included when you do that.
Speaker 1:I'm like cool, I'm just having fun, but I like that You're doing it for you, but we all feel good.
Speaker 2:I like doing things for other people too.
Speaker 1:Well, I did want to say I do have a production company called Many Worlds Video and we world's video, and we do have a youtube channel where I put up all of the films that I am willing to have other people see. I have an instagram, but I am not very good about updating it. Yeah, I don't really. I think I have a facebook page, but I really should be better at this kind of thing. But I I do a lot of linkedin, so I'm michelle busque on linkedin. That's about it nice michelle.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for joining us. We really enjoyed it. Check, check out her book. Check out her YouTube channel.
Speaker 1:It's called how we Do a 48-Hour Film Project available on Amazon in paperback or Kindle.
Speaker 2:Now you need to make the audio book.
Speaker 1:I might do that.
Speaker 2:Just because, well, I'm a janitor, I like listening to books.
Speaker 1:I actually ironically for someone who wrote a book I don't read books anymore, I only listen to them. Same kind of thing, Except for technical books. You can't really do that.
Speaker 3:Right yeah.
Speaker 1:But yes, I should make an audio book out of it. It has very few pictures in it.
Speaker 2:And if you need some people to read for you, we might know a couple of guys.
Speaker 1:Oh all right.
Speaker 3:Might even know somebody that's got a broadcast booth.
Speaker 2:Whoa and his beer doesn't get in the way. All right, folks, we'll see you next time. Thanks for joining us.
