As a child I was carefree enough to be adventurous. My favorite thing was to ride a red wagon down harrowing back hills in Rockport. All the neighborhood kids would give it a go. Good results and bad. Now an adult, I’ve always longed for that feeling.  I recently discovered its filmmaking equivalent: The 48-hour film project.

What is the 48-Hour film project? The short explanation is simple. From Friday night at seven until Sunday at seven you write, shoot, edit, score and finish a short video based on guidelines provided by the organizers.

That’s it? Yeah, that’s it. Pick your team of cast and crew from your film neighborhood and take turns in the wagon.

The hardest part came in the beginning. Our group tossed around ideas, but we stayed non-committal. Once we woke up my kids we were forced to drive around.  We remained non-committal. In the end, time and pressure began to do what we couldn’t: eliminate the unworkable ideas. We decided on one idea and the first draft came lightning fast. Unfortunately, so did the sunrise and the call time.  

I had put the production together through a series of emails to cast and crew during the night. Every member of the team had everything they needed, albeit in draft form, in their mailbox when they woke up at 6am. We decided to shoot the exterior on Revere Beach in the late morning and then the interior portion later that night. As with anything flying by so fast, we would have to improvise and adjust all day.  

One major stumbling block was that I had to be in Portland for a speaking engagement. I had to leave the production piled in my living room for the two directors George O’Connor and David Kornfeld to run with. And run with it they did.  They transformed Revere Beach into an Italian seaside paradise for our genre, foreign film. The team, some of the actors dressed in short sleeves and skirts, braved cold winds and gathering crowds to capture a virtually panoramic view of an Italian island.

I returned in time for the recording of the beach dialogue for the overdubbing and to help set up for the interior shoot. By 10pm we had wrapped principal photography and started digitizing and logging the footage for editing. At this point both the editor and I had slept four hours since Thursday morning, but the looming deadline kept us working away.

After an unexpectedly complicated internet music delivery involving three computers and a CD recorder, we had the music laid down in ten minutes after we were supposed to leave. That, of course, prompted the mad dash to the drop off point experienced by nearly all the other filmmakers. If anyone passed us, we knew they were part of the project.

In the end, we finished on time and were very pleased with the final product. Our film, PAISANICS, was well received at the Kendall Cinema and was selected as the Best of Boston. Everyone enjoyed the experience and after steering away from all the obstacles, we came to rest just inches from the edge of old-man Johnson¹s ravine. I invite everyone to grab a wagon and join us next year.

The Group  "Men With Big Shiny Spears." The PAISANICS' production cast and crew:  Kevin Anderton, George O'Connor, David Kornfeld, Stephen Gaun, Steve Gianino, Jill Reurs, Maryanne Galvin, Leon Salem, Bernice Liuson Sim, Brian Quint, Vic Clay, Mike Maxwell, and Nicole Bockman.

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Kevin Anderton produces comedic and satiric short form films, lots of them.  A prolific writer, director, producer, he is honing his skills and aspires to write situation comedy for Television. Anderton work is frequently screened all over the world as he is passionate about having his work seen.