11 Award Nominations; Zero Awards

That’s embarrassing, but I believe in full disclosure, so I have to tell the story. It is part of the journey.

Yeah, that hurt a little

I guess we’re in good company: Peter O’Toole and Glen Close were each nominated 8 times for an Oscar and never won. That doesn’t really make me feel better. 😑

I didn’t really understand the nomination process for the 2023 48 Hour Film Project in Cincinnati. I can’t figure how every film was nominated for “Best Film”. There were 10 eligible films and there is no way that all 10 were contenders for the top three Best Films. Same for “Best Use of” each of the required elements. Every film?

In the end, 16 awards were awarded among just 5 films.

Disappointment is a function of expectations

Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect. I watched all of the films and I thought we had a pretty solid entry. It was not the best film, but it was competitive.

Soon you will be able to see the film and, while you won’t see it directly against the other films, you can judge it for yourself. I thought we had a great story and good performances. The camera work may have been uninspired, but the picture quality was solid. Our sound quality was as good as any other film and better than most.

One of the films to place in the top three had serious sound issues… microphone noise and dialog that was difficult to hear. Wow. I mean… wow.

But, as my nephew Adam said he learned studying photography in college:

Awards are great pats on the back, but never true indicators of great work.

Okay, I’ll take that.

We turned out a good little film. It isn’t perfect, but conceiving and creating a short film in 48 hours doesn’t lend itself to perfection. We had an ambitious script: 7 scenes across 6 setups, indoor, outdoor, day and night. We had exactly one real actor. We hadn’t made a short film in four years. Of course, no one apart from us cares (or even knows) about those challenges. They just see the result.

We made a few mistakes; more than some of the other films but less than others.

Just because there is no applause doesn’t mean you didn’t score.  -Shane Parrish

We also had quite a bit of fun and learned a lot

And that matters. We created memories among family and friends and that is time well spent. Weeks later, we are still quoting lines from our film and talking about it.

But still, it hurt to get completely passed over. I admit that I like getting accolades, but I also wanted the rest of the team to feel like what we did went beyond just a fun weekend.

We press on

Eh, maybe next time. Defeat won’t stop us from making another film. It’ll just help us make the next one better.

Stay tuned.