THE WRONG SIDE OF THE TRACK poster
We’ve just received this email from filmmaker Dave Sharkey in Seattle:
“So what do you do when you have no way to prepare, only 48 hours to write, shoot, edit and master a 8 minute movie to DVD? You turn to Save the Cat! Software and the big board, of course. My name is Dave Sharkey, a Seattle Producer, and I’m an alumni of TheFilmSchool in Seattle, WA, where John Jacobson introduced us to Save the Cat method & software. A group of TheFilmSchool alumni (including myself) and a few other Seattle filmmakers competed in the 48 Hour Film Contest as a team called “Remote Viewing Apparatus.” We were able to secure the Seattle Monorail for our location thanks to help from the Mayor’s Office on Film & Music, but we knew the secret to success would be a great script. It’s about the STORY.
Our goal was to use what we had learned to make the best story complete with 3 acts, beats, & conflict in 8 minutes. Well, at 7 p.m. Friday, we drew Romance as our Genre, nail file for a prop, the line: “What time do you get off?”, and the character: Mike Jordache, a paparazzi. We used the Save the Cat software set to 7 pages, set the genre to Buddy Love and followed the revised beat sheet. Then we set up the board on the table, and handed out blank 3×5 cards to brain storm. It was a great tool to work as a group while keeping us focused on the beats. We had a complete script by morning, and thanks to a great cast & crew, we wrapped at 10 p.m. Saturday. The editors took over and by Sunday, we had created the short, Wrong Side of the Track, shot entirely on the Seattle Monorail.
We received an email yesterday that our entrée won the Audience Award for our showing. It will be up on the contest site www.48hourfilm.com in a couple of weeks. Thanks for the Save the Cat method & the software – it really works.”
