After a long break from short films, Terminal Velocity Films has entered the 48 Hour Film Project in Cincinnati for 2023. Taking place the weekend of September 15th, this 2-day event is a fun yet massively stressful way to make a short film.

What is the 48 Hour Film Project?

The 48 Hour Film Project (www.48hourfilm.com) is an event that takes place over various weekends in over 100 cities. At the start of the project, teams are given a prop, a line of dialog and a character that must appear in the film along with a choice of two genres, selected at random. The entire film, from writing to filming to post-production, must be completed inside the 48 hour window. The film must be 4-7 minutes in length.

While there will be some very professional teams entered into the Cincinnati event, ours isn’t one of them! We are using this event to have fun and to learn.

What has Changed

Our last short film was Instant Camera filmed in the summer of 2019. It’s almost impossible to believe it has been four years, but that whole pandemic thing… yeah, wow.

Since that much time has passed, a lot has changed in the equipment available to us, mostly provided by 10/10ths Development. We will have a Sony Fx3 cinema camera with a Sigma Art 24-70mm lens and a Manfrotto gimbal (thanks to Dave Poole). On the sound front, we will have two wireless lavs, a wireless shotgun and an additional shotgun mic available, all going into a Zoom F6 mixer-recorder. For lighting, we have three powerful LED point lights, two LED panel lights and two LED-RGB tube lights and four practical bulbs capable of colors and effects. We might even have a drone, which we promise not to over-use, should it become available.

In fact, we have so much gear this time, that we had to rent a minivan to haul it all around. For more details, see New Gear for 2023.

The Crew

We will have around 8 people, schedules depending. That is still a small crew for the task at hand. Everyone will have some hand in creating the idea and script. We’ll carve out most of the production roles as we get closer, but here is what we know:

The team leader is Terry D. Coates, the founder of Terminal Velocity Films. Terry will be handling much of the duties from coordinating all of the paperwork required to cinematography, sound and lighting setup and editing.

Tammy Coates will be taking over the role of director from Terry. This is her first time in that role, but one at which she will naturally excel.

Thad and Joye Bauer will provide the location (and crew lodging!) a their beautiful residence. This is the same location used for Instant Camera. It’s a great property with lots of possibilities, which we barely used in Instant Camera. Plus, it comes with Thad and Joye and their daughter, Nicole! All appeared in the original cut of Instant Camera and will be integral to this project.

Dave Poole will provide the music once again. But this time he’s going to be on-site, which will not only make it easier to create and incorporate the music, we’ll be able to lean on Dave for additional duties. I hope he realizes what he was getting into when he offered to attend.

Jackson Coates was our key sound guy on Instant Camera and was half of the first film race that resulted in the Terms and Conditions short. Fingers are crossed that he can be there, however. He’s a second-year law student, so that might take precedence.

Alex Wey and Julia Brown have tentatively commited to be part of the project. Their varied background and seemingly limitless knowledge of all things (they actually met at trivia) will be super-helpful!

Everyone is very excited and we can’t wait for the event to start on September 15th!