How to Make a Movie in 24 Hours

Kate, Jordan and Joe doing the first script read-through

Were you disappointed by this summer’s crop of movies? Did you ever think that you could do it better if you were just given the chance? This is the challenge my friends and I took up last week-end when we competed in the 24 Hour Toronto Film Challenge.

In 24 hours you need to write, film and edit a five minute film. You’re given a challenge pack which contains a genre, theme, prop and a line that you have to use. It’s a true test of creativity, skill and friendship when you spend 24 hours in close quarters with eight of your friends.

Tura films the first Scene.

The whole experience kicked off at nine a.m. when Joe, our elected producer attended the information session in which they give you your challenge pack. The genre was Dramatic Comedy but it could not be a mockumentary or a satire. The theme was first times. The prop to incorporate was an inkblot and the line was “What makes you an expert?”

By 10:30 a.m. the entire team converged on Joe and Lisa’s house which was to become our home base. After a quick breakfast we all assembled in the dining room with a flip chart and crayons and began our mind mapping.

In 20 minutes we brainstormed two sheets of chart paper filled with ideas. In the end we settled on the first time being the first time someone goes on a blind date. We decided that the main character, Bradley Worthington, would be going on his first blind date the same day as his driver’s test.

Tura gets in for a close-up.

Once we had settled on the idea, characters and general plot a few of us, myself included, sat down to write the script. The one hint the challenge organizers stressed at the kick-off meeting was that script was king. With this in mind we all delved into it with the determination to make sure the script was rock solid before we went out to shoot.

We kept it simple with only three actors being required. We arranged it so that all the locations were on the same street as Joe and Lisa’s house. By 3 p.m we were outside filming all the driving test scenes.


Our first complication came when we ran out of daylight to shoot the driver’s test scenes. As we didn’t shoot the scenes in chronological order some of the scenes that were in the middle of the film ended up being shot in darkness which clearly didn’t work for continuity.

By 10 p.m. we had finished filming and Joe, Tura who was our cameraman and director, retired to the editing suite to start cutting the film. Even though the rest of us had nothing to do with the editing process we thought it only fair that we stay up and keep vigil with our editors.

Joe and Jordan refer to the script.

I have learned that the key to staying awake all night lies in finding things to keep you busy. This is the point where the extended version of the Lord of the Rings came in really handy.

If you’re familiar with the film series you’ll know that each of the three movies runs about three hours in length. This very easily filled what could have become a really long night and managed to keep three of us awake.

By 6 a.m. Lisa, my friend Kate and I were the only ones left awake with our editors. While we were watching the beginning of the Return of the King our editors had finished the final cut of the movie. All that was left to do was add the required credits and output the movie back to DV tape.

At this point we were feeling pretty confident since the final film was due to be dropped off at Queen Video by 10 a.m.; we had done it with three hours to spare! This was when our carefully laid plans hit an insurmountable snag.

Tura discovered that the video camera that we had used to output the film to the computer for editing had a broken input jack. This meant that we could get the film out of the camera but we couldn’t put it back in.

Greg and Jordan filming the last few scenes.

One of the non-negotiable rules of the challenge is that the film MUST be handed in on DV tape. Unfortunately, due to this technical difficulty it was the one format we could not output it to.

In a last attempt to still make it in for the judging, Tura took the film on a portable hard drive back to his house in Scarborough where he had other equipment he thought might transfer the film.

As a back-up, two other team members, Stuart and Jordan took another copy of the film on Jordan’s iMac to Queen Video. We hoped that another team would come along and let us borrow their video camera.

In the end neither attempt was successful and our film did not make it in for judging. That aside, we all still felt rather proud of our accomplishment.

The greatest difficulty of the challenge was time management and this was something we got right on our first try. We finished the film with three hours to spare. Despite our failure to successfully complete the challenge we all feel good about what we did accomplish. We’re ready to give it another go. This time we’ll be double checking all the equipment before-hand.

The finished film Driving Blind: A Bus Stop Named Desire is available for viewing on youTube.