I decided to meet up with some filmmakers for my report and was able to get in contact with the Lane Community College Megateam that decided to do the Eugene Film Society 72 Hour Horror Short Film Contest. I joined on the first night and was told that they had a prop that needed to be in the short, as well as a saying which also needed to be included. They pitched around a few ideas and I was even able to give a couple of thoughts about what would be an interesting horror short to make. Eventually we had to part and I wasn’t able to be there for the creation of the project due to family reasons. I did however show up to the screening and watched as all the wonderful projects went on throughout the night. There were about 24 shorts and each took the ideas and ran with it, the prop was a paintbrush, especially the winning short about, well I suppose it would be best to go to the Eugene Film Society website to watch it for yourself. The Lane teams’ short came on and it was really cool to see what was once a fleeting idea turned into a full fledged horror film. I was able to meet with them after the screening and asked what the hardest part about making it was. I was told multiple times that the editing process had a ton of unexpected hiccups that made it difficult to put together, but the biggest problem was they actually had too much footage. The maximum run time for the shorts was around three minutes, however they had about five. The editor told me she wanted to keep the one shot ending intact so all she could do was trim down the earlier parts, which upset them because so many of the shots were really good. The team told me they had learned a lesson in making sure that any further shoots would have shots with more options to edit from, and would at least have an ending that could be split into multiple shots if need be.

I learned that making a short film in such a short amount of time is a compromise because you have to pick and choose which parts to focus on during its’ creation. It sounds difficult to make a short in the span of three days but I think the Lane team really pulled off a cool short and can’t wait to try and actually be a part of the horror creation of next year! I also learned that Eugene has a ton of creative filmmakers and I would love to start connecting with them in some way. I’m glad to have found a fun way for the artists in the area to interact and compete with each other, and am once again looking forward to being a part of the community very soon. I remember hearing that there is also a music video competition as well so that will be something to look towards in the future too.