The past weekend saw the annual
Antarctic 48-hour Film Festival.
I wrote about this last year and our
2013 entry is available here.
Every base on the continent and the
sub-Antarctic islands is invited to make and submit a short film,
shot entirely on location and over a two-day period. To keep things
fair and fresh there are five elements given out on the Friday that
have to be included in every film; two objects (this year a swimsuit
and a swing), a sound effect (a pig squeal), a character (Wal Footrot
– a New Zealand cartoon character who was fairly simple to google)
and a line of dialogue. As we'd been voted best screenplay for our
condensed Star Wars tribute last year we got to supply the latter,
and after much sorting through Smiths lyrics and favourite movie
quotes submitted the following, from possibly my favourite ever film;
'it'll be dark soon and the mostly come at night... mostly'. I'll
where it's from as a kind of quiz.
After having such fun filming Star Wars
we thought we'd try and condense another epic into around five
minutes. This time Lord of the Rings.
So we came up with a basic storyline;
three or four short scenes, and fleshed that out into a basic script
fairly simply. The tough part was costumes and props. Luckily we have
a dressing up box left by many previous residents, so a healthy
supply of wigs and waistcoats. Legolas's cloak was a cleverly folded
tablecloth while Gimli's axe was forged from a broom handle,
cardboard and tin foil.
The weather for Saturday looked a bit
grim but nothing compared to what was forecast for Sunday, so we rose
early and, while Cian went off on the leopard seal round, the rest of
us climbed up to the nearby cave to shoot some uncomfortable scenes
with Frodo and Sam. You can see in the film how cold we are as
everyone's breath is clearly visible.
After a return and a cup of tea we
headed up the valley to record a bit of Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli
running around. The low mist meant visibility wasn't good enough to
do any real long shots, as the entire of the second film seems to
consist of, but we still had fun running round with capes trailing.
A battle scene on the beach with a
horde of (very similar-looking) orcs was probably the most fun to
film as it basically involved more running round and shouting,
swinging swords and axes about. When it came to editing this bit it
was all a little quiet so I got all the others into the office and
recorded a voiceover of them shouting, screaming, grunting and
banding a few spoons together to represent sword clashes.
The final bit of filming was of Merry
and Pippin meeting Gandalf. We weren't going to be beaten by the
other Hobbits filming a scene barefoot but you can see how cold we
are by our pink faces. By this point the mist was getting very wet so
it looks like everything is in soft focus. Still, the scenery is
somewhat reminiscent of Middle Earth.
As promised, Sunday lashed it down with
rain so we were grateful we didn't need any reshoots. Instead I spent
most of the day editing and finally was able to show it to the others
on a big screen in the lounge. Twice – so I guess that means we are
pretty pleased with it.
***UPDATE***
The results are in and we came in third for cinematography, second for best film and first for acting!!
