We headed up to Dunedin on May 20 for the opening of the film-making festival, where we were assigned our film genre, which was horror.
After an hour of nervously waiting, the clock struck 7pm and we were officially competing. We put our heads together on the trip home to Gore, and by 2.30am we had written a script. So we headed to an old building in town, currently used as a dance studio. With its dark corridors and curving stairwells, it was the perfect setting for our film.
By 5am, we were tired, ready to go home and very scared, so we called it a night and enjoyed a few hours of sleep.
On Saturday we embarked upon another long day of filming, which involved several trips to a pizza outlet and covering our friend Fynn in a delicious mixture of tomato sauce and red food colouring.
Slowly but surely, our film was coming together!After a sleep-in on Sunday, we began the mammoth process of editing, which we had foolishly thought we would finish in no time.
By 5.30pm we were nowhere near finished and couldn't hang around any longer. In a last-ditch effort to complete our film and deliver it to Dunedin by 7pm, Brendan and I jumped into the car and continued to edit on a laptop as we sped away from Gore.
As we reached Mosgiel, we finally decided our film was complete and excitedly began to load it on to the pen-drive.
It was 6.45pm and for the first time, we believed we just might make it. However, after checking the laptop battery, Brendan discovered it was about to die.
As our film continued to upload, we were praying that the laptop could hold on just a little longer.
Finally Brendan exclaimed, "100% uploaded!" and hysterical laughter and relief filled the car.
Magically, the town lights ran green and we swerved up to Dundas St with a mere three minutes remaining. Barefoot and exhausted, we used the last of our energy to sprint to the finish line, applauded by many of the other film-making teams.
The sweet satisfaction of handing over our finished creation was worth all the effort.
We had completed the V48 Furious Film-making festival!
