This weekend is the da Vinci Fast Film Project, in which participants write, shoot, and edit a film in 48 hours. The goal is to make a short of 10 minutes or less using the prop and script line that you are given at registration. Every year I think about entering this competition to relive my summer of filmmaking in 2002. And every year I have other ideas about how to spend the weekend. Maybe next year, right?

The latest produce to tide me over until we actually reach summer fruit season are Moro blood oranges.

According to Wikipedia, the blood orange is a hybrid of ancient origin, possibly between the pomelo and the tangerine. It probably originated in Sicily. They aren’t particularly sweet, but the novelty of eating a blood red orange is still compelling enough. The juice looks like pulpy grape juice.

Too bad the Memphis Tigers choked away the NCAA title by bricking four straight free throws near the end of regulation. That was embarrassing. It was a great comeback by Kansas though.

If I had remembered that Roy Williams now coached for North Carolina instead of Kansas, I would have predicted the Tarheels to choke instead of the Jayhawks. Why didn’t I remember this when I was filling out my bracket? I guess that’s what I get for not paying attention. Well, Roy, perhaps your karma has been served. You got to lose to the team you left. Turns out there was no reason for me to expect Kansas to lose, since Roy jumped ship to Carolina a couple of years ago. (OK, upon some actual fact checking, I guess he’s been at North Carolina for five years now. And North Carolina won the national championship in 2005. And apparently I have no idea what I’m taking about.) Crap.

(By the way, in case you don’t know, I explained more about what super 8 film is sometime in June. It has nothing to do with the motel.)

This film was shot in one day at the H.B. Van Duzer Forest State Scenic Corridor, in between Salem and the Oregon coast, with very little planning. My friend John starred and I followed him around with the camera and tripod. The ending (shot in my very own bedroom) is silly, but overall it came out halfway decent.

Again, like my last film: I created the digital video you see embedded below by projecting my film onto a screen at the NW Film Center and recording it with my Canon PowerShot digital camera in video mode. Thus, the quality sucks. And since my digital camera can only record 30 second video clips, I had to keep pausing and rewinding the film in order to have enough overlap on each AVI file to splice them all together on the computer afterward. It was a joy.

If you move your mouse over the Flash video below, a menu will appear with Play, Pause, Stop, and Mute buttons. You may have to wait a few moments for it to load before it will play all the way through.

The soundtrack for this film includes bits of “Dissolved Girl” by Massive Attack, “Chop Suey!” by System of a Down, and “We’re the Same” by Matthew Sweet.

This film was storyboarded in one day, shot in one day, and edited in one day. My co-director Sean and I had a budget of less than $100, which basically covered the purchase and processing of several rolls of super 8 film. We filmed the chase sequence on the edge of Portland State University, on SW 9th Ave (past the NW Film Center’s Guild Theatre), and in the SmartPark garage on 10th and Yamhill in Portland. The actors are Sean’s sister and his friend.

I created the digital video you see embedded below by projecting our film onto a screen at the NW Film Center and recording it with my Canon PowerShot digital camera in video mode. As you may notice, the quality is, uh, less than ideal. Plus, since my digital camera can only record 30 second video clips, I had to keep pausing and rewinding the film in order to have enough overlap on each AVI file to splice them all together on the computer afterward! As a result, the digital transfer process was retardedly tedious, but I didn’t want to pay anyone to transfer a film this mediocre. Anyway… enjoy! It’s only two minutes of your life, I mean, c’mon.

If you move your mouse over the Flash video below, a menu will appear with Play, Pause, Stop, and Mute buttons. You may have to wait a few moments for it to load before it will play all the way through.

Oh yeah, the songs I used are “Just Like You Imagined” by Nine Inch Nails and “Fell in Love with a Girl” by the White Stripes.

By the way, super 8 film is 8mm wide acetate motion picture film. The rolls are packed in molded plastic cartridges. Each super 8 cartridge holds 50 feet of film, which amounts to about three minutes of footage. Shots must be chosen wisely!

I think super 8 filmmaking is great; it’s just like those home movies your grandpa used to make! I like the cartridge, which makes it easy to load and essentially idiot-proof for accidental exposure. I also love the grainy texture; much better than digital. Filmmaking is my new hobby of the moment, at least for this summer. Maybe at some point I’ll make a really good short film and try to get it submitted to a festival. You know, shoot it in super 8, convert it to MiniDV, edit it in Final Cut Pro, then transfer it back to celluloid, blown-up at either 16mm or 35mm, with audio, since super 8 film is silent. Umm, sure, yes! I totally know what I’m talking about.

In other news, a friend of mine is moving from Corvallis to Portland and leaving her sofa with me in Salem on her way up. It will be nice to have a bit more furniture, regardless of its threadbareness. The sofa is soft and well worn. It will be much appreciated. I also just found out that Salem has an all-city tennis tournament coming up, so I guess I’ll try to enter that.