LDS 24 Hour Film Festival

For the last nine years the LDS Film Festival has held a 24-hour film competition.

The basic idea is you have twenty-four hours (from 10:00 A.M. Friday to 10:00 A.M. Saturday ) to write, shoot, edit, score, and turn in a three -minute film.

The Rules Were:

1. You can only have five people in your group total (meaning only 5 people to act as your cast AND your crew).

2. You must use the given theme, prop, and line of dialog in your film (Our theme was generosity, our prop was a dollar bill, and the line of dialog was "What more can...").

3. Your film can only be three minutes in length.

This year four colleagues from the UVU film department and myself entered the competition.

Our Group Consisted Of:

Jorden Nash

Brittney Johnson

Jeremy Prusso

Eric Lawrence

and

Neil Hiatt (Myself)

We all worked hard and pulled together a really great short film.

Our Schedule Went As Follows:

10:00 A.M. - 12:00 Noon. - Get theme, prop, and dialog from LDS film festival. Come up with idea and write script.

12:00 Noon - 6:00 P.M. - Film entire script in three different locations.

6:00 P.M. - 5:00 A.M. - Film green screen in garage, synch sound clips to film footage, and edit the film together.

5:00 A.M. - 6:00 A.M. - Film pickup shots in garage, record songs for film, and record voice ADR.

6:00 A.M. - 7:00 A.M. - Color correct footage and mix audio.

7:00 A.M. - 9:00 A.M. - Finish mixing audio and synch it up to final film edit.

9:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. - Add After Effects lightning to fifteen frames of footage.

9:30 A.M. - 9:50 A.M. - Export film to DVD.

9:50 A.M. - 10:00 A.M. - Turn in final product to LDS Film Festival.

This was our first time entering the competition, and honestly I couldn't have asked for a better group.

You know why?

Because...

WE FREAKING WON!!!!

Here is us accepting our award:

(From left to right: Jorden Nash, Jeremy Prusso, Neil Hiatt, and film festival sponsor Christian Vuissa. Not pictured: Eric Lawrence & Brittney Johnson)

Here is us taking a picture in front of the LDS Film Festival Sign:

(From left to right: Neil Hiatt, Jeremy Prusso, Jorden Nash)

Here is a picture of me next to Boss Nass from Star Wars:

(From left to right: Boss Nass, Neil Hiatt)

Anyway, our three-minute short titled MUFFIN TOP took 1st PLACE out of twenty-nine entries and it also won the Audience Choice Award.

That means we beat out one-hundred and forty film makers working on their twenty-nine separate projects!

The logic:

29 groups x 5 film makers per group = 145 film makers

145 film makers - 5 (our group) = 140 film makers

And there were some really great films in this competition!

It was a wonderful feeling to meet so many talented individuals and to walk away with our heads held high.

So, without further ado, I give you our short film...

(NOTE: Remember we only had 24 hours to make this, so please forgive some of our editing and continuity errors)

MUFFIN TOP:

All-in-all it was a great experience, and I can't wait until next year's competition.

Top 10 Favorite Movies From My Childhood

When I was a kid there were some movies that I could watch over and over again. Some that have stood the test of time and some that have faltered into obscurity. Here I will list and give a summary of what each movie means to me.

So...

Neil Spencer Hiatt's Top 10 Favorite Movies From His Childhood

1. Back To The Future - CLASSIC! I first saw this movie when I was 3 years old. My Grandmother had a copy she had recorded from TV on VHS and I would stand in front of the Television with a ping-pong Paddle and pretend to play the Johnny B Good song Marty sang at the end. Funny, Quirky dialog and well rounded characters made this one of my top favorites. I actually hate it when people don't get the significance of 88 Miles Per Hour. They really don't make movies like this anymore, lovable characters, great script, comedy action suspense and a pretty creepy sub plot if you think about it...But either way YOU HAVE TO LOVE THIS MOVIE.
   


2. Superman 2 - I loved Superman 1 but Superman 2 is by far my favorite out of the series. General Zod and 2 other prisoners of Krypton escape when they crash land on Earth. I used to have a pair of superman pajamas and my dad would fly me around the house as superman and he would play ZOD he would even pretend that it hurt when I crushed his hand at the end of the movie. We would sit down and watch this movie ALL weekend when I would visit. I can look back and see that he probably was sick of it but every time we went to blockbuster he would let me rent it, which makes him a pretty kickass person.


3. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - I am willing to bet in the late eighties and again in the early nineties pizza sales skyrocketed and it was all because someone said "How about turtles that are mid-pubescent and are also ninjas?" My favorite was Raphael because he was a loner on the edge and because I thought it was funny when he would yell you "DAMMMN!"
   


4. The Dirt bike Kid - What do you get when you have a magic motorcycle, a local hot dog hang out that's about to be bulldozed by a corporate giant, Van Halen on the soundtrack and that kid from the Christmas story? Probably the greatest cheese ball comedy ever produced. It's about a boy who buys a dirt bike that for some reason (not explained in the movie) is magic and can fly...that's right FLY! How rad is that? If anyone has a copy of this on VHS please let me know!
   


5. Indiana Jones (1-3) Yeah I know that these are 3 separate movies but the truth is they all make up one whole part of my childhood...also it's my list so SCREW YOU! Harrison ford plays the whip toting archaeologist brainchild of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg and basically forms the epitome of all that is man.
   


6. Star Wars (4-6) The original star wars even before the special edition made up a good 3 years of my life writing short stories in my basement bedroom about my friends and I being Jedi's and having light sabers as well as speeder bikes....basically anything that hovered or made a "Woosh" sound was enough to hold my attention at that age.
   


7. Christmas Vacation - I only have one question....What the hell happened to Chevy Chase? There was the original Vacation, Christmas Vacation and Fletch and then there wasn't a whole lot else...This is a classic for my dad and I. He loves slapstick and it's probably the only National Lampoons to throw some warm family ties in along with it. Animal house is great but Christmas Vacation is the tops.
   


8. My Pet Monster - I can not find this movie ANYWHERE!!!! It's not even on amazon! This is a movie about a nerdy boy who gets transformed into a monster after staring into the eyes of a statue at the local museum. The suit was basically a glorified fur costume, like the ones they use at Disneyland. There was also a cartoon spin off that is easier to find on you tube than the actual movie.
   


9. Ghostbusters - Bill Murray replaced John Belushi when he died as the role of Peter Vankman and it has become a classic. I love the gags, the 80's special effects (including the puppets) and the theme song gets stuck in your head for days. When I was 3 years old I got a full proton pack set for my birthday, they put it in my lap and I fell over into my Grandmother's rhubarb patch...my dad has it on film and every year on my birthday he says, for example when I turned 22, "It was nineteen years ago today that you fell in the rhubarb..." But I loved this movie! My aunt took a childs sized air force jumper and sewed on the Ghostbusters symbol. I loved it so much I wore it all the time, even when we went to Lagoon and it was 115 degrees outside and refused to take it off. I remember watching it years later and cathing all of the jokes that I didn't get when I was a kid making this a nostalgic classic for me.
   


10. The Christmas Story - This one needs no explanation (considering that it is on TNT 24 hours a day all through the month of December). Suffice it to say this is probably the only thing my mother and I share as a "Common Interest" when it comes to movie appreciation.

So...that's my top ten list of movies that defined my childhood, obviously there are many, MANY more I could add such as the secret of nihm and An american tale but they wouldn't call up the memories that the ones I put up do.

So with that list being made I just have to say....They don't make them like they used to. Movies now a day are more concerned with ticket sales, special effects and pandering than making quality film from fresh ideas. When was the last time you've seen a movie that wasn't a sequel of an older movie or a re-imagining? Though Batman Begins ROCKED it still wasn't an original idea. I can't even think of the last truely original movie in a long time....and it makes me sad.

P.S. The Dark Knight is coming out in July and I couldn't be more excited!!!!