This weekend, I had the pleasure of shooting another 48 Hour Film with the guys at Urban Mountain Media.  I previously appeared in their award-winning Safe House during the 2007 48 Hour Film Project. 

The 48 Hour Film Project is an annual event wherein filmmakers are assigned certain requirements (specific genre, particular line of dialogue, character name & occupation, and prop) and have precisely two days to write, shoot, and edit a finished 4- to 7-minute film. 

This year, the Urban Mountain team got the “superhero” genre.  The film starred Hannah Steblay and myself.  I play a guy who’s saved by a superhero, “The Shadow” (realized only using special effects), becomes obsessed with him, and tries to contrive a way to meet him again. 

Our first shots of the day were on the Stone Arch Bridge at 7:30 Saturday morning.  In the scene, my character threatens to jump off a bridge to lure the superhero to him.  Harry Reeder, the director, volunteered to be my stuntman and climb over the railing of the Stone Arch Bridge in my stead.  Dressed like me and wearing my glasses, he bravely/stupidly crossed the railing.

Here’s the crew shooting from below:

Harry didn’t die, so we continued to shoot.

Sixteen hours and a mean sunburn later (thanks to shooting outside all day), we wrapped, confident that we’d shot a pretty neat film.  As we finished shooting scenes, the crew would drop the footage off at their home base, and it would get edited while we were shooting more scenes.  It looks really nice, which is always the case with Urban Mountain.

Here we are shooting a series of scenes involving Hannah and me at a St. Louis Park bus stop.

Also, my costar from Safe House, Riley McNutt, had a cameo as a mugger and also provided a mountain of free leftovers from Loring Pasta Bar, which was fantastic.  Thanks, Riley.

Our film will be screened Wednesday night in the 7:00-9:00 PM slot at The Riverview Theatre, 3800 42nd Ave S, Minneapolis. Tickets are $8.00.  I’m excited to see it on the big screen, and I know it’ll be a strong competitor.