My 7 Minutes of Fame or “I’m Ready for My Close-up, Mr. DeMille”

THIS is what I did this weekend.

If you get a chance to participate in your local area, you should definitely get involved! It was a total blast, although I definitely learned how the hurry-up-and-wait conditions on a movie set can be quite exhausting. Mr. Random served as the film editor and my friend J and I helped write the script and had sizable acting roles. The acting was unintended on my part – I had thought I’d be an extra in a crowd scene or handling the boom mike. But no, my character is rather integral to the plot and I even had a couple of lines and a close up shot.

I don’t know if I will ever post on this blog the resulting 7 minute film, because that would blow my little bit of anonymity to heck. If it gets YouTubed or something I might put it up for a very limited time, but under the condition that you realize the whole thing was done in two days, so don’t expect art, decent camera work, a linear plot, or even good acting.

This week, they are showing all of the films created in our city at the American Film Institute Theater in Silver Spring, Maryland. Unfortunately, our film is going to be shown in the Friday night group, and we already bought tickets to take Mr. Random’s mom to see a play at that exact time. Bummer! I really wanted to see what the other entries looked like . . .

Maybe after the judging is over with this upcoming week, I’ll let you know how our film did. I doubt we’ll get any awards though, the actual photography was kind of spotty and the plot-as-scripted and the plot-as-edited in the film are a bit different. (Now I see why screenwriters are a bitter and cranky bunch.)