Mi Casa Su Casa Productions

Mi Casa Su Casa Productions was created when I heard about, and quickly signed up for the 48 Hour Film Project. At first I just wanted a screenwriting credit. But I also became the producer. It was an absolutely wild time. If you've never heard about the 48 Hour Film Project look at their web site. Just as the name implies, you have 48 hours to write, shoot and edit your short film! At 7 pm Friday night you pull your genre out of a hat. Everyone gets the same required prop, line of dialogue and character. Then we all run out to write the script. Everyone has until Sunday night at 7 pm to turn in the completed film, original soundtrack and all. I highly recommend it. Just assembling the crew, assembling the cast, scouting locations, approaching sponsors, was an education in itself. I discovered I LOVE being on the set. Thank God for script supervisors. We had a technical problem during editing and the Director and I didn't get to see the final version that we turned in! The team invited everyone we knew to see the premiere at a major downtown theater. It's amazing that your participation can lead to anything from winning the grand prize and getting shown at the Cannes Film Festival, to completely embarrassing yourself in front of all the friends you invited. Our film wasn't a finalist but I wouldn't trade the experience for anything. Of all the things I learned from this madness of making a movie in 48 hours, the surprising thing was how even a 7 page script can be very different than the 5 minute and 26 second long film. The director added a chase scene, changed a scene to add guns, and changed some dialogue (he added cursing). On the set the dialogue got changed back to the original. The script had two locations and he used four locations. This was a good lesson of something I hear over and over that 'they will change your script when they buy it.' But to actually have it happen right before your eyes. And to have a favorite scene cut because there was a problem with the sound... Ugh, that hurt. Anyway, I appreciate movies all the more now that I know what really goes into bringing that vision from your head to paper up onto the big screen. It's such a thrill to see your name up there and your story come to life. It's like magic. Our film isn't perfect but I am proud of it. Our sound designer wanted to 'fix' it and add more music for our personal DVD copies. I said no. It is what it is. This was the best we could do in 48 hours. Instead of saying well I wish I did this or wish we did that, we should sit back and say, "Hey, I made a movie! How awesome is that?"