48 Hours

When I was asked to be on a 48-hour Film Festival team, I was thrilled! I frankly had very little idea of what I signed up for.
Showing up at the Landing on Friday night, I sat with the crew waiting to find out which genre we would choose from the big hat. The sun was so hot that I almost didn't care what genre we got, just so long as it didn't require staying outside.
"Thriller."
Everyone on our crew's face lit up. They kept exclaiming, "We have the perfect location, we have the perfect location!" I met everyone back at the AI School and we ate dinner and talked and waited. I was completely bored, totally unimpressed with the fact that nothing seemed to be happening, and really uncomfortable sitting in a room full of people who all appeared to have something to do while I checked my phone 10 million times.
Finally at about 9pm, the writer emerged from a computer lab and summoned me and another guy. He told us we would be the stars of his film and he needed us to get ready because we may shoot late. I asked him if I could run home and shower and pack a bag; I was completely unprepared. He told me I needed to hurry and handed me a map of the location. When I got home, I Google-Mapped it...Callahan. I hadn't even heard of the city. Why? Because it's in the middle of nowhere. In Nassau County. Ten minutes from Georgia. What the hell had I gotten myself into?!
I arrived at the location, which was an old house on 9 acres of property with the scariest big red barn I had ever seen in my life. I was pretty sure I had been followed by a semi with a man inside who was going to kill me.
We started filming about 2 hours later, with no indication of what the script was even ABOUT! Being told we'd be finished around 1am, I was very happy that I brought my sleeping bag at 4:30am when I finally got to sleep.
The next morning, it was pretty clear that this was not a union film when it was announced we'd begin filming in an hour. Eyes crack, peer at my watch...6am. Awesome.
We filmed all day and well into the night again, never given one iota of a scosche of a hint as to what this movie was about. I had lines. I had scenes. None of them made sense. But I committed. And as the hours dragged on, I watched the people around me commit. I watched them work together, stress out together, and laugh together. I watched a creative, only somewhat-experienced group of people work as professionals together to complete a project. It was inspiring, fun, and exhausting to say the least.
At the end of it all, I still don't know what the movie is about or how it ends. But what I do know is that I am completely proud of the work that we all did.