48 Hrs. (1982)

http://www.48hourfilm.com/en/greensboro/

"The 48 Hour Film Project is a wild and sleepless weekend in which you and a team make a movie—write, shoot, edit and score it—in just 48 hours.

On Friday night, you get a character, a prop, a line of dialogue and a genre, all to include in your movie. 48 hours later, the movie must be complete. Then it will show at a local theater, usually in the next week."

I'm so grateful to my best bud, Austin, who's been competing in the 48 Hour Film Project for the last 2 years. He built a small crew of UNCSA first years and a couple of local G-boro friends who ended up working very well with each other. 
I learned quickly that as prepared as you would like to be, you can't do much without a genre. 

Thursday June 21st, 2012- Location, Location, Location.

Step one. Find locations to potentially shoot it. How do you do that when you don't actually have a film? Easy. Woo them. So far we have two bakeries (one of which is my absolute favorite in Greensboro), one coffee shop, a church, and a high school. As the co-producer I generated a letter that was attached to the Location Release Form pretty much requesting to film in their establishment without a film. Without a film, I mean that we won't actually write it until tonight when we get our genre.

Friday June 22nd, 2012- gen•re noun a category of artistic composition, as in music or literature characterized by similarities in form, style or subject matter. 

Today was a waiting game for 6:00 pm when we finally got the genre of our film (we were also assigned a character, a prop and a line.)

Headquarters

After transforming the basement into our own personal 48H Headquarters everyone begins to arrive. Beginning with our main actor, Zack Messick, followed by our editor, Ian Quarels and Director of Photography, Camilo Herrera. Austin, Director, Zach and I run over to get the genre. 

Quick panic strikes as everyone adjusts to the news of having Musical as our genre. Secretly I was uber excited and couldn't wait to start collaborating on ideas for a not-so-cheesy musical!

Alex Amick, actor, joins the party and offers great feedback. We all throw our ideas on the table, and like most cases, not everyone agrees with the other. Which only offers more great ideas. It got a little rough at times but we bounced back quickly. Eric Ball, actor, shows up as we start developing a concept and writing songs. This process is followed by writing the script then a shot list. Which is when I can write a potential schedule for the day. Did I mention we decide to base the whole story in a tattoo parlor without having a tattoo parlor locked? Ambitious, but fun. The story is created. The lyrics are written and the crew begins to part ways for the night. 

Saturday June 23rd, 2012- Shooting Day

7:00am alarm goes off. Sound Mixer, Isaac Banks, arrives to record the songs to later dub over the picture. The Director, Editor and Mixer work diligently early in the morning while the other crew members slowly get up and gather the equipment. 

Just a little behind schedule we arrive at our first location to capture some "B-Roll" footage of horses for one of the segments. I couldn't help myself...

After the shots we rushed over to our first complete crew location, a parking deck roof for some fun city skyline shots. This was a good moment for the crew while we watched our leading man spray whip cream all over his shirtless chest. 

We quickly approached being really over schedule so the next location time was cut in half, an alleyway. We got our shot in less than fifteen minutes and moved on. 

Eric Ball's flowers

Our story follows Zach who is nervous about a date with Beth. He's meeting her at a tattoo parlor where his friend, Alex, works and runs some ideas by him and a customer, Eric. He wants to write her a song and goes through 4 different genres (and country song, a Glam Rock song, a rap, and a pop song) before he decides on an acoustic singer/songwriter song which always wins. It is a hilarious journey, what would you do if you only had 10 minutes to write the perfect song?

Lunch Time, compliments to Chic Fil-A! A special thank you to Beth who filled up 8 Large [complimentary] waters for the poor, starving, parched crew. 

We locked the tattoo parlor at 11am when they opened. http://littlejohnstattoo.com/ We arrived right on time and started setting up. Aside from the buzzing sound in the background [tattoo needle] we got all the shots we wanted and were very satisfied with the outcome. 

The location I was most excited about was our final location of the day, Maxie B's. A Shabby Chic Cake Bakery that my bff, Jen would definitely approve of. http://www.maxieb.com/

There was a great feeling in the air when we wrapped on the final shot. We got back to headquarters (Austin's basement), and had some great lasagna and talked about how tired we were. 

We all agreed on one thing that night. That everything went swimingly and that we had a great leader and team. From the beginning it was apparent that this project meant a lot to everyone and we worked hard and non stop all day together. There was a great sense of comradeship. And like some people can dedicate their practice in yoga to someone, I'd like to take this time to dedicate this blog to Austin and his family for sponsoring our team and being so great through a process full of so many emotions. 

Thank you for everything. 

Isaac Banks, Camilo Herrera, Ian Quarles, Alex Amick, Will Bednar, Eric Ball, Zach Messick, Austin Elliott, Christene Hurley

Cast/Crew photo: Missing- Ellis Elliott, Tim Elliott, Timothy Stroud and Beth Hawkes. 

It's Editing time! My job is technically done so I get to relax. Cue the Mixer and Editor: 

Sunday June 24th, 2012- Editing and End of competition. 

Ian stayed up until 9:00am putting all of the footage in a chronological order and syncing the sound from set to the picture. 

With most of the crew gone we start breaking down the headquarters and diving deep into editing. The film is due promptly at 7:30pm. 

5 minutes to spare

A very tired editor finally crashes on the way home. 

Final thoughts... The video is complete. Our screening is next Thursday at 9pm. After that, we can make our video live. And as proud as I am for this film, I wish I could remind anyone who watches it that with any film, the filmmakers and editors can take their time for the most part with the editing step. And that they can schedule as long as [the producer] wants for filming.The point of this project was to do all of that in 48 hours. If we had more time to shoot and edit I'm sure we'd have a very different film. On that note, again, I couldn't be more proud of the cast and crew and I can't wait to do it again next year. 

Update: We are now able to make our film live and here it is!!

Summerhood (2008)

More like girl meets cable TV, then never left her house.  It never fails, all of my ambitious goals go down the toilet when I start a new series. After catching up with Shameless, Weeds, Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, Mad Men and Desperate Housewives (no judgement) I am going to give Revenge a shot.  I have no self control. (Or time during the school year to watch TV). That's all I seem to want to do these days, it feels SO unproductive but fulfilling at the same time.

current obsession with Christina Hendricks

http://bettydraperlookingpissed.tumblr.com/ <-- This is a funny Tumblr I came across.

Summer has been a bit of bouncing around since Brandon got back from deployment on May 26th. It's been a lot of packing and unpacking. Organizing and cleaning and trying to sell a lot of stuff that's just collecting dust. I've been very successful on Amazon. Seriously, if you have stuff laying around the house you don't want, post it on Amazon and sell it!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aag/main?ie=UTF8&isAmazonFulfilled=0&marketplaceID=ATVPDKIKX0DER&isCBA=&asin=B00064XG0G&seller=A23YGXEPHV0LJZ

I've also pulled out my craft box to keep me entertained and found some jewelry I made last summer to pass the time.  I recently decided to post them on Etsy. It's really exciting because according to the site I "opened my shop." :) That's cute.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/ChristeneHurley?ref=no-search-results

I watched The Family Stone (2005) and was inspired to recreate the famous "Morton's Family Strata" that Meredith makes for Christmas morning. This movie is one that starts a thread of films I have to watch for some odd reason. It's always followed with The Last Holiday (2006) and then sometimes with Nothing Like the Holidays (2008)

http://www.food.com/recipe/morton-family-strata-from-the-family-stone-movie-329652

The Strata came out really nice and made the whole house smell of breakfast. For some reason it was better the second morning. There are some changes I'd make like using fresh tomatoes, maybe less onion and add cheddar and or feta cheese.

I made Peanut Butter cookies today that came out really tasty. Just call me Giada.

I saw Hunger Games (2012) and I really enjoyed it. I vaguely knew the story line and saw the trailer once because I didn't want to have very high expectations of it. I really wanted to enjoy it. And for the most part I did. My only qualm is with the cinematographers choice to have so many close up and hand held shots. I was so interested in the bigger picture and loved the rare wide shots. I have not read the books but Brandon has and told me the film did the book justice. There were a lot of details left out, but the second book is apparently the best and a film to look forward to. I was very pleased with the performances and the costumes.

Just watched the Tony's! It was pleasantly surprising entertaining. I delayed my viewing of True Blood's Season premiere and Mad Men's Finale to watch the awards in it's entirety. It's no mystery why this is Neil Patrick Harris' third time hosting. It was also very nostalgic to see the ever handsome, Hugh Jackman, receive his humanitarian award during the show. What a man, what a mighty good man. I saw the first trailer of Les Miserables (2012) during the show and was left spell bound. December can't get there fast enough!!! 

The First Film related thing I'm participating in this summer is The 48 Hour Film Project in Greensboro with my school mates. I'm co-producing and 1st Assistant Directing, very exciting! 

Summertime not only reminds me of Porgy and Bess but also an independent film that was brought to the San Diego Film Festival in 2008, Summerhood (2008). It was one of my absolute favorites of the festival and a festival favorite in general. Director, Jacob Medjuck, was such a blast to get to know and hang with. I picked his brain as much as I could.

Check out this nifty irrelevant little treasure: http://www.tentsile.com/index.html

New York, I Love You (2009)

A Film by Camilo Herrera:

Oh Hey!

This trip to NY made me feel like a traveling food critic. I spent more time and money on the foods I ate than anything else and it was well worth it. 

Day One- May 9th, 2012. Mega Bus. 
Our schedule: Depart Durham, NC at 11am arrive DC 4pm; arrive NYC 9pm. The bus ride itself was quite pleasant actually. Impossible to sleep, unless you're the type that can sleep anywhere. This means of transportation ended up being the least expensive (compared to flying, train, driving and parking in a lot and renting a car).http://us.megabus.com/
Camilo's friend, Mark, what a sweetheart, met us at the Bus in NY and after a short walk to his apartment we had about enough energy to chat for a little then c.r.a.s.h. (But not after some birthday celebratory drinks.) This was our first time meeting Mark and it felt like we'd known him forever. He fell in right at home, farts and all. 
All in all a very great first night. 

An Empire State of Mind

Day Two- May 10th, 2012. Birthday! :) 
There's only one way to wake up on your 28th bday. With a vanilla iced latte from Starbucks and a walk in a park. I've got this little tacky tradition for my birthday when possible. Dating back to my 21st birthday: The Hard Rock Cafe. So we head to Time Square for lunch, what Mark, calls "A Visual Vomit." [It's the Twisted Mac n cheese I go for.] It's delicious and consistent no matter what country I get it in. 
http://www.hardrock.com/locations/cafes3/cafe.aspx?LocationID=99&MIBEnumID=3
We got pretty pooped quickly from walking block after block. (and the guys didn't enjoy waiting for me to get through all four floors of Forever 21 in Times Square.) 
We decided to head back fairly early and order NY style pizza for delivery and watched Clue (1985). 

Goofing off in Toys r Us

Day Three- May 11th, 2012. Museums. 
Start the day with Starbucks again, a nice tradition. Then we make our way to the Museum of Sex. This museum is not for the frigid. http://www.museumofsex.com/ When you walk in (which you may or may not see in my collage video) you are allowed to mount a bicycle, that has a flesh colored, silicone you-know-what attached to the end. The bicycle acts as a motor if-you-know-what-I-mean. After passing many racy souvenir options you enter the actual museum. I have to say, it is pretty informative. A lot of history about sex in film and art. Believe it or not the only thing I had a hard time seeing was the reproduction of animals. It's just gross to me. I flew through it like a bat out of hell.

Showing off my new hat

"I can't emphasize enough how nice it is to be with my friends outside of school. Getting to see your raw personalities and not just as students"

"Um...Um.. AHAHAHHA... The world is an interesting place in the eyes of the big city. " 

Best cookies!

I visited Alice's Tea Cup on my last trip to NYC and had such a great time with my friend, Jen, having tea and pastries. This time around I bought a stationary set I've had my eye on and a monstrous sized chocolate chip cookie.
http://alicesteacup.com/ 
We get the brilliant idea to eat lunch in Central Park, on the menu: Halal. Which was our favorite word until we tried it. It was AMAZING! HALAL FTW! 

@ the MOMA

We visited the MOMA while there was a special no admission fee going on. We spent hours in there and I know I didn't get to see but about 70%. What I did get to see was Diego Rivera, Jackson Pollock, Claude Monet, and Frida's work. Along with many new artists I've never heard of. http://www.moma.org/
Exhausted we head 'home' to rest and talk of dinner plans.. Indian maybe? The only thing I looked up to say in Indian: " BATH-ROOM KID-HAR HAI " Which translates to "Where is the bathroom?"
Indian never actually worked out, instead Mark and his roommate, Lois, took us on a tour of St. Marks. 
We started off at Crift's Dogs, which is a dive bar that serves only hotdogs with any topping you want. I got the Chihuahua (sour cream and avocado) It was Amazingly tasty!
Next stop: Pomme Frits, Belgian fries, where you get any flavor mayo you want. We got garlic mayo and pesto mayo. By then I was pretty stuffed so I skipped out on fro-yo. Still a great night in the city.

Crift Dog in St. Marks

Pomme Frits on church steps

Day Four May 12th, 2012- Endless walking. 
We started the day off with brunch at Penelope's with Bella. Worth the hour and a half wait. http://www.penelopenyc.com/ It was great catching up on the theatre side of life, I've somehow avoided it for the last year at school (even with drama & D&P students all over the place).

Mimosas and Belinis

In honor of my 28th bday

Trying to get to the freedom tower was a nightmare. It was the weekend so the subway line wasn't running normally. We stood on a platform waiting to go to the Freedom Tower for close to an hour. We gave up and headed to The Theatre District to meet Bella and Chris to attempt to get Book of Mormon tickets. Didn't happen. So we visited the High Line instead. http://www.thehighline.org/ It was BEAUTIFUL!!! I had to fight not to see the whole thing through my lens. 

 

Sunset under the High Line

Craving Mac-n-cheese we walked for hours trying to find a couple of places that only serve it. We finally found Mac Bar in Soho. Delicioso! http://www.macbar.net/

Primavera Mac-n-cheese

I feel a little guilty that I somewhat, briefly forgot that pinkberry existed. We were crossing the street around Central Park and a bus passed like the parting of the Red Sea slowly revealing the pink and green polka dotted awning. I reached over and grabbed Camilo's collar in excitement. We needed food-food, so we skipped out on the pb for the moment, but went back later. :) Reunited and it feels so good..." http://www.pinkberry.com/ Please visit this site, it's fun and you can find one near you. You won't regret it!

Pink Berry

Day Five May 13th, 2012- Mother's Day

First of all let me wish my mom(s) a happy Mother's Day! Today started off with a nice (no wait) brunch in Long Island City with my dear friend, Brandon Whited! We walked around and went to his favorite jewelry store which were giving away free charm necklaces! (mine is below). 

We then took a ride on the Staten Island Ferry to get a better look at the Statue of Liberty. Besides some crazy guy trying to start a conversation, the Ferry ride was really exhilarating!

Staten Island Ferry

We are on this kick to not eat the same thing so we decide on Sushi! At Nobi Japanese Restaurant. Everything was very tasty!

Day Six May 14th, 2012- Rain.
On our own today we decided to start the day with Pizza for breakfast. We are becoming naturals on the subway system. 

We made our way to the Brooklyn Bridge. It was a beautiful sight but I wish it didn't rain, I was worried about my camera but I still got some fun footage. 

Brooklyn Bridge

On the Brooklyn Bridge

Wall St. Bull

We finally made it to the Freedom Tower. There is a memorial with two pools in honor of the two towers. http://www.911memorial.org/ It is a pretty powerful memorial considering it happened in our lifetime. 

Freedom Tower

South Pool Memorial

Surviving Tree

Trinity Church

We took advantage of being on our own today to watch The Avengers (2012) in the city! It is definitely the best movie of 2012. It was exciting and adventurous and hilarious! What a treat to watch it take place in NYC while we were there. I haven't seen Thor (2011) or Hulk (2003) but I will soon. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0848228/

Best Movie of 2012!!

To kill some time for Mark to get home we googled best cheesesteaks in NY and go to Shorty's which is conveniently located very close to where we were staying. The subs were to die for. We placed a togo order the sh*t was good. :)

http://shortysnyc.com/browsers/shortys/

There is roof access in Mark's building we didn't have access to during the beginning of our trip, but we finally got up tonight. It was really beautiful, even with a little rain. 

Rooftop 30th st.

Day Six May 15th, 2012. Austin's Birthday!

This morning at Starbucks the barista remembered my order! It was an awesome feeling! We took our tasty beverages to a Crepes place up the road. On the menu: Apple Crisp Crepes. 

Birthday Crepes!

It was a very rainy day but we hiked uptown to B&H, a massive photo/video supply store. I spent a little more than I needed to. But it was totally worth it and I only bought things I really needed. 

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/

Take one on The Museum of the Moving Image. Brandon Whited told us about a museum of film in Long Island City. We decided to try and make it there around 4, the museum closes at 5. We didn't actually make it. :( 

So, Grand Central Station it is! It's a lot smaller than I remember. And it seems a lot smaller than movies make it seem. 

Magnolia Bakery is a bakery I've heard about and wanted to try so we knocked out two birds with one stone. We ordered the white chocolate macadamia nut cheesecake with a cup of coffee. It was tasty! http://www.magnoliabakery.com/home.php

Magnolia Bakery in Grand Central Station!

Now finally, dinner. I had the best meal I've had in New York tonight. Becco http://becco-nyc.com/ I googled "best pasta in NYC" and according to Yelp!, Becco was 2nd. It received 4/5 stars with a $$$ sign. It was worth every penny and then some. Around 7:45pm (which I would consider a dinner rush), on Restaurant Row in Hell's Kitchen, we walked right in and were sat immediately. The server quickly greeted us with glasses of water and a basket of bread. My friend ordered the Antipasto Misto appetizer which was a Smorgy's Borge of wonderfulness! Octopus, caprese, grilled zucchini and things I can't even identify! Once our salad plates were wiped clean the dinner plates were replaced and we were on to our entrees: Sinfonia di Paste (all-you-can-eat pasta). 

Becco All You Can Eat Pasta

3 different types of pasta (chef's special of the day) Tonight was Ziti marinara with basil; Fettuccine Bolognese, and 'Nude' Dumplings in a green sauce stuffed with spinach and ricotta. There was absolutely no room for dessert this night but....

Mark, Camilo, Alice and Lois made us a home made brownie cake for our b-days! Notice the little camera on the right?! How sweet!

Day Seven May 16th, 2012. Last Day. 

East River Ferry is our choice of transportation to get to Long Island City.

Me and Mark on the Ferry

LIC Boardwalk

We started our last day by going to the Museum of the Moving Image. http://www.movingimage.us/  Costumes, portraits, prosthetics and interactive sections made for such a fun afternoon. Below is a stop motion animation I created. I wish I knew I had access to more frames or this would have been longer. 

Sex and the City 2 (2010) Make up from set

Winona Ryder's prosthetic legs from The Black Swan (2010)

Star Wars figurines from the 60s, 70s, and 80s

Goofing off in the Egyptian style theatre 

We learned so much at this museum. If only we could just touch everything like the Mole lights and cameras. I was happy to know that I could take photos and shoot video just without a flash. 

On our way to Jackson Heights

Mark and Camilo found a Colombian burger joint in Jackson Heights that was mmm...mmm...mmm... delicious! I got a hot dog with crumbled potato chips that tasted like they were soaked in pineapple juice, with ham and cheese and some grilled peppers under melted provolone cheese. Yes, a heart attack ready to happen. 

Day Eight May 17th, 2012- Homeward Bound

In preparations to make the ride home less sad and unbearable we pick up Cheesesteaks from our favorite Sub joint, Shorty's. Then head to Pinkberry to get some gelatness heaven for the wait for the bus. This was a great idea. 

Mega Bus is not comfortable to try to sleep on, lemme be the first to say. Our ride to DC was at 1:15 am this morning. If it weren't for the Au Bon Pain at the Bus station I may have punched a baby. Instead I watched the finale to Smash as a farewell to the Big Apple. 

This was a great trip that ended too soon it feels. I made some great new friends, saw places I've never seen before, ate food I've never eaten before and made memories I'll never forget. What more can you ask for out of a trip? 

One of the nights we realized we were in the city. 

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for more summer adventures, maybe not as entertaining as NY but I'll try not to disappoint.