One Night in Andar
Dear Friends,
This film was made for the Minneapolis 48 Hour Film Fest, where participants are given a genre, a character, a prop and a line of dialogue, and must write-film-edit in 48 hours. It was maybe the most positive, constructive fun I've had with a group of peers since I was twelve and all the neighbor kids built forts in the woods together one summer.
There were a half dozen of us and it felt like we were a free floating entity. No one had a bad idea. As a group we explored every possibility, whether it be over the characters and their development, how things would look, or ways to solve the hundreds of tiny problems that would pop up. Because of the rush to make a movie in under 48 hours, we had the luxury of immediacy. For example, if they were filming a character's monologue and then someone thought that we should do another take but in a completely new way: they would shot it and decide later.
This was the first time I had worked with anyone involved in the project except for Erin Hael, the director, who I came to know though what I'd call, "friend group distillation". While the movie was made as a group project, and everyone helped one another, specific credit is due. The actors wrote most of their dialogue, save for "Alice" as Kelsy Osterman had to be at work, but when she came in she got her lines and smoothly delivered. Deb Andler, mother of Danica, catered the project, meaning she showed up with boxes of food, trays of sandwich meat and bowels of fruit and pasta salad. The animators, Zach Pearl and Noel Young, created and painstakingly shot all the animated scenes while we slept. Danica Andler created the beautiful and complex sets to reflect each character's personality. Lucas Price spent most of Friday in the basement with a keyboard, coming up with the movie's soundtrack, and told us whenever he thought the microphone recording was, "a little hot". Joe Kramm kept us all on track and on task, as well as was responsible for most of the lighting. Erin Hael spent 30 hours staring into Final Cut Pro. Cameron Brainard kept us all in stitches by saying things like "Come ride the Brodeo!", "So, I was munching on some honeyz at the snack table.", and "Ya'ever taken a trip down 'Bro-day-oh Drive'?". And I cannot forget Aida Leguizamon, since she helped me into my bodysuit and applied all my makeup wearing only seashells. But, As far as editing this thing I have no idea who did what, I was sleeping. I'm sure I'm missing something or someone but well there you go. The group was awesome and I'm so glad I was asked to help and act in this.
Erin Hael - director
Danica Andler - set design
Noel Young - animator, "Eileen"
Lucas Price - soundtrack, audio recording
Joe Kramm - director of photography
Zach Pearl - animator, "Mr. Perkinson"
Aida Leguizamon - makeup, "Vicki"
Cameron Brainard - "Brody!"
Joel Lueders- "Joel"
Kelsy Osterman - "Alice"
Joe Gillette - dance sequence programmer, monster mask
Debs Andler - catering
Marie Carlson - support
Ross Strangler - support
Christopher Pole - support
Love, Joel Lueders
ps. What we had to use was, for our genre: fantasy. our character: Mr/Ms Perkinson, substitute teacher. our prop: a fish. our line of dialogue: "You look very familiar."
Higher resolution version available here, courtesy of Noel Young.