2022 48 Hour Film Project

3/14

One rainy weekend in September 2022, I got together with the people from production company Skypeople Pictures in the lovely city of Tilburg, the Netherlands. During that weekend we took part in the 48 Hour Film Project of Utrecht. The genre of the movie was Holiday, and filmmakers Denniz and Alexander had a very peculiar holiday in mind: Steak and BJ Day. Yes, this holiday really exists, and is the satirical male equivalent of Valentines day, celebrated exactly one month after this romantic and commercialized calendar filler. The sheer absurdity of the existense of Steak and BJ Day alone was enough to create a short film about it.

This was the second 48 Hour Film Project I took part in, and was a lot of fun. I took my laptop with me to the set and started creating musical sketches while the crew was filming the first scenes. Denniz already knew he wanted a big ‘climactic’ moment in a classical style of music for the final scene. Realizing this was going to take a lot of time, I started chipping away at it, and ended up with a piano sketch that I was pretty happy with.

The rest of the day went by in a chaotic fashion, which is so common for a 48 Hour Film Project. After lunch, it was my plan to write more music, but they needed me as a runner, car driver, and even as an extra in the film. All of this was exciting and fun, so I just went with it. During the evening (late in the evening that is), I finally got time to create some more music. The team and me went to the final set location, and I started orchestrating the climactic ending, and created a theme for Noah, the dress maker character of the film. Exhausted but very happy with how the day went, I drove home to get some sleep. Denniz and the editors stayed up the whole night editing away, and still were when I woke up rested around 11 am the next day.

I spent the rest of my Sunday in my home studio trying to perfect the climactic ending, and create cues for the rest of the scenes. Because of a lack of time (this is also common for a 48 Hour Film Project), I had to derive all of the other music cues from the climactic ending. This turned out to be a smart move, because it creates a sense of unity in the movie and music. More is not always better, as it again turned out.

I like how the movie and soundtrack turned out, along with a weekend full of fun. It was great collaborating with the Skypeople Pictures team. Unfortunately, the jury had other thoughts about the film. It didn’t receive any awards, nor nominations. I guess they kind of ignored it. Never mind, another great film music experience, and a great weekend are in the pocket!

You can check out the film below through the embedded YouTube video. If you want to listen to the soundtrack, you can do so by clicking on the album cover.

 

wAtch

Watch the film

Listen

listen to the music

 

Disclaimer: this film is by no means intended to feed into the ongoing culture war. It was just a bunch of people having fun creating a short film about an absurd holiday. I Hope you enjoy watching it! 😀

3-14originalsoundtrack