Best Of Jacksonville Screening

Belong was selected to be a part of the Best Of Jacksonville Screening which will take place Saturday, August 25, 12:00 noon to 3:00 p.m. at the San Marco Theater. The award winners will be announced during that screening.

Links To Articles

Here are some links to articles regarding the 48 Hour Film Project. Joe is quoted and even has a photo in one.

Florida Times Union 8/8/2007
First Coast News 8/3/2007
MetroJacksonville.com 8/9/2007

Belong

Michelle Marin as Tara in the short film Belong.

The short film “Belong” is the result of a collaborative brainstorming session involving members of the “NFocus” team as part of the 48 Hour Film Contest held in Jacksonville, FL. The idea behind the contest pits teams against each other who all must write, find actors and locations, edit and create music to complete a short film based on a genre drawn at the beginning of the contest. All in 48 hours. The NFocus team drew “Drama” as their genre and soon after, began the process of creating their story. As part of the team’s discussion they began to question what a person would value so much that they would willingly give up everything to have. Eventually, after word associations and personal stories, it was agreed that the need to “belong” was so profound in all of us that it shapes virtually every facet of our lives.

In the film, Tara, played by Michelle A. Marin, portrays a young woman who has finally discovered the whereabouts of her bottom dwelling, addict mother. Her decision to embrace her mom and her brokenness forces her to leave the world she knows.

Screening

Belong will screen, along with other films from the 48 Hour Film Project, on Tuesday, August 8, during the group A screenings at 6:45. The screenings will take place at the Main Branch of The Jacksonville Public Library, 333 N. Laura Street (the entrance for the auditorium is on the Main Street side). More information on the screenings can be found at www.48hourfilm.com/jacksonville.

If you attend the screenings, please take time to revisit our blog and provide us with comments on the film.

Thanks.

48Hour Production Photos

You can check out our behind the scenes photos, including some not yet seen, on our Flickr account at www.flickr.com/photos/nfocus48hourproject.

Coming Soon

Hey everyone. Keep checking back on the blog. Over the course of the next few days, we will be adding some cool stuff to the blog. Most likely, we will add the short film, some behind the scenes footage, and other cool things. Talk with you later.

Success

8:00 p.m. Sunday – We are headed home, traveling south on 95. My head hurts and I am tired. Our film was turned in just before 7:30 this evening. What a relief. We encountered some technical issues with the edit system during final playback to tape and that process took a lot long than it should have. Twenty-two of the twenty-six teams in the competition were able to finalize their project in time.

Considering the limited resources and time, we are very pleased with the final product. By the way, the name of the short film is Belong.

Michelle Marin the lead actress in the film really carried it well. Her performance in the opening scene is awesome. During the first take of that scene, as Joe and I looked into the monitor, I was almost moved to tears. We both kind of stepped back and just looked at each other.

The production crew worked really hard to obtain the quality images we needed. It was long, hard, hot and sometimes messy work. The shoots were also accompanied by the usual amount of joking around and ridicule by our director Joe. But they were all troopers.

The story, as you will soon see, tells the tale of one who is willing to stoop into the grunge of life and save someone, even someone who is broken. The NFocus team did a good job of creating a solid story and Joe did a good job of getting it down on paper.

Again, as with many of our projects, the film is toped off with an excellent musical score by Adam Davidson. Adam’s rendition of the old hymn “Lay Your Sins Upon Jesus”, which plays during the end credits, highlights the underlying theme of the film. Great job Adam!

Early on during, our pre-production for this project, we knew it was going to be critical to have a local person involved as an Associate Producer. Man, did that prove to be true. There is no way we would have been able to pull off this production in such a short period of time without someone who knew the area and could secure resources for us. Ennis, you are the man.

It was fun and extremely challenging, a great experience. Glad it’s over.

Awards for the project will be announced on August 25.