It’s that time of the year again… The 48 Hour Film Festival!

From July 31st through August 2nd, filmmakers around the country created teams to participate in the 48 Hour Film Project’s Festival. Our Tampa video production company has participated several times (and even won in 2012!). This year, 28 teams around Tampa, and thousands around the world competed. Litewave Media’s team had 25 crew members and actors who helped bring our film to life. With only 48 hours, the teams had to write, film and edit a 7-minute short film – which would then be screened at a local movie theater the next week!

Our team was honored to be nominator for 9 awards this year! Here’s the scoop…

Our Tampa video production company films Tampa short film for 48 Hour Film Festival

Our Tampa 48 hour team gets ready to film!

Friday 7pm. Our Tampa video production crew went to the kickoff event for the festival. Our production coordinator, Ana Christina Sanchez, pulled our genre: “Fish out of water” from the hat. Besides the movie’s genre, teams were also given 3 essential elements that had to be included in each film to qualify for the contest. This year the character requirement was an investigator named “Michael/Myra Jillerson,” the prop was a “pair of pliers” and the line of dialogue was “Nothing can stop me.” After getting all the elements, it was time to get creative!

Our Tampa video production company films Tampa short film for 48 Hour Film Festival

Our writing team, Christian Cashmir, Jason Henne and our DP, Ryan Grosjean, writing the script at our Tampa video studio

9pm. Litewave Studios. After the kickoff event, our team met at our headquarters, Litewave Studios Tampa video studio, to brainstorm ideas for the story. When the brainstorming session, was over our writing team, Jason Henne, Christian Cashmir and Anthony Brock buckled down and finished the script to have it ready for our call time the next morning.

Our Tampa video production company films Tampa short film for 48 Hour Film Festival

Our director, Christian Cashmir, films with a Canon C100 from our Florida camera equipment rental

Director Christian Cashmir says, “The story centers around a group of friends playing a Dungeons and Dragons game who summon an other-worldly visitor. The exciting part of doing these 48 hour contests is the way it challenges us to be extremely creative while at the same time managing our time. It’s definitely one of the most fun events we take part in throughout the year!”

Our Tampa video production company films Tampa short film for 48 Hour Film Festival

Our gaffer, Andrew Ortoski and director of photography, Ryan Grosjean, setup the Dana Dolly for filming overhead shots

Saturday 9am. In the morning, our team of 21 crew members and 7 actors met at our location to start setting up and prepare for the adventure. With only 32 hours to go, the clock was ticking! We filmed most of the movie with 2 Canon C100s from our Tampa camera equipment rental and we also used a Sony A7S to capture slow motion footage. Our Florida video camera crew used a Dana Dolly and our Freefly Movi M5 camera stabilizer to get uniques angles and dynamic moving shots.

Our Tampa video production company films Tampa short film for 48 Hour Film Festival

Our Tampa video crew with the cast in between takes

Our Florida grip and lighting crew brought our Tampa grip truck to ensure we had ample gear for the shoot on location. Our lighting team lit the set with a variety of sources including Kino Flo Divas, an Arri 1K with soft Box, and Litepanel LED lights, all sourced from our Tampa grip and lighting rental packages. Over 50 candles were lit and scattered around the set. Crew covered windows and doors to simulate nighttime so we could shoot during the day. The film is set in a dark and mystical environment so the lighting and cinematography team wanted to adjust the location lighting to match the story.

Our Tampa video production company films Tampa short film for 48 Hour Film Festival

Our production design team adding candles to the location

Our Tampa costume designers had a blast outfitting the actors in quirky attire to match their characters’ unique personalities. Bridget Desjarlais created unique looks for each character, and local leather worker Joshua Von War-Bear pieced together a custom costume for a barbarian character.

Our Tampa video production company films Tampa short film for 48 Hour Film Festival

Christian filming Monster Washburn who plays the Barbarian

Saturday 10pm. With less than 24 hours to go, our Tampa post-production company started editing Saturday on-location to get a head start. Music, sound design and visual FX were added on Sunday at one of our Tampa editing suites. Our Florida post production company also color corrected the film, and Stephen Maxwell composed an original score for the movie.

Our Tampa video production company films Tampa short film for 48 Hour Film Festival

Our cast and crew reviews playback of a scene on set

Sunday 6pm. With only minutes to spare, the movie was finished right after 6pm and turned in on-time!

Our Tampa video production company films Tampa short film for 48 Hour Film Festival

Cast and crew of “That’s How I Roll” at the 48 Hour Film Festival movie premiere event

Our short film titled “That’s How I Roll” premiered on August 9th at the HCC Ybor Main Stage Theatre for the 48 Hour Film Festival screening event. Our cast and crew reunited at the premiere to celebrate our achievement and see the final product for the first time. Production Coordinator Ana Christina says, “It was a lot of fun watching all the other movies that were submitted to the festival. There is so much talent in Tampa Bay!”

To view our award-winning film “That’s How I Roll” click below!

Our 48 Hour Film took the festival by storm! Our Tampa video production company was nominated for 9 awards and won 5 at the 48 hour “Best of” Awards Ceremony!

We were honored to take home these amazing awards:

Audience Choice

Best Writing 

Best Cinematography 

Best Sound Design

Best Special Effects

Our Tampa video production company films Tampa short film for 48 Hour Film Festival

Our award-winning Tampa production team celebrates at the awards ceremony for the 48 Film Festival

Our Florida video company is extremely proud of our team. We produced an award-winning film all in less than 48 hours, and had a blast doing it! We’re looking forward to screening our film at some upcoming festivals this year. We had an amazing team of filmmakers and actors and could not have done it without them! THANKS!

Our Tampa video production company films Tampa short film for 48 Hour Film Festival

The cast and crew filming on location. There’s a lot of love in that room!

Thanks to photographers Taylor Blake, Samantha Greene, Anthony Brock and everyone else who contributed photos to the gallery!

Do you have a Tampa short film or feature you would like to produce? Please contact us for a free consultation. You can like Litewave Media on Facebook to check out our latest video projects. Be sure to keep up with the blog for more Tampa video production news!