PhotoChimera film to add a special 'color' and magic to San Diego's 48-Hour Film Festival!

Tourists gawk as bright green ogres roam San Diego's streets !

2008-08-13, BBHollywoodReports

(click to enlarge)

Posted by BBHollywoodReports 149 days ago (1)
Category: Entertainment - Film | Tags: fantasy film art mythos ogres

Drivers stopped their cars. Joggers halted in mid-step. Tourists gawked in surprise. Was it a presidential motorcade? Was it an off-season parade? No. It was a group of unusual actors pushing a hospital gurney up and down the city's downtown streets while in full makeup as ogres. Created by the special effects makeup team of Victor Ciccarelli's PhotoChimera, the actors were paying out a scene for the film "Gurney journey" to be shared at the 48-Hour Film Festival on Saturday, August 16.

The film festival uses an stringent set of guidelines that require filmmakers to create a short film from scratch within a 48 hour time-frame. The adventure is in the planning, preparation, and execution of an idea. Randomly mixed and matched, there are a dozen genres, a selection of characters, and a multitude of props and catchphrases that might be received in the random draw. A filmmaker's only proviso is to take the information given them and in 48 hours create, write, film, and edit a short film... creating a film that includes the assigned specific character, specific name, specific prop, and specific phrase.

So on Friday, August 8, 2008, at 7:00 PM, just as with the other 43 entrants, Ciccarelli was handed a slip of paper setting the guidelines for his festival entry. The list handed to Ciccarelli was terse:

-- Genre: road movie
-- Character: a construction worker named Joe Beeble
-- Prop: tweezers
-- Catchphrase: "Have you heard the news"

After receiving these parameters, Cicarrelli rushed back to the PhotoChimera studios and met with his team. They then spent several hours hashing out the possibilities and permutations of a storyline. When an idea was solidified, the main team slept as Ciccarelli's writing staff scripted a story based upon the meeting. Before sunrise on Saturday morning, his actors were back at the studio and getting into makeup and costumes as crew constructed the sets. Over the next 12 hours their story was brought to life and the action was filmed. By late Saturday afternoon, the cast was dismissed, the makeup artists were sent home, and the real work of creating a film began as Ciccarelli and his production staff spent the rest of the evening and all day Sunday editing footage and adding a soundtrack.

Racing the clock, Team PhotoChimera had a finished film presented to the festival at 6:25 PM... 35 minutes ahead of the 7:00 PM deadline. Reported by festival representative Lisa Thompson, out of the 43 teams in competition, 41 were able to create and submit a film and 31 of those film makers submitted within the 48-hour deadline. "Gurney Journey' will screen on Saturday, August 16. What's the film all about? How do ogres fit in?? You'll just have to go to the festival to see for yourself.

For more information about the filmmaker, please visit http://www.PhotoChimera.com
For information about the 48-Hour Film Festival, please visit http://www.48hourfilm.com/sandiego