The Gloves Are Off | Living Arts 24 Hour Film Race (2015)
In a world where the upper and lower classes are separated by the ability to afford high-fashion gloves, violence is never far below the surface. When a snooty heiress pushes her mechanic to the breaking point, it's game over.
In Spring of 2015, I was asked to join Triple B (a group of college students) in the Living Arts 24 Hour Film Race. The name is self-explanatory: we had 24 hours to write, film, and edit a short film.
The race started at midnight! It took us a little under two hours to write the script, assign jobs and make a game plan. I would be playing the role of Dawn, a rich bitch (which I was totally excited for). After splitting to gather costumes and film equipment, we met at a parking garage.
To give you a better feel of what it was like, picture this: It's 2 AM. You're on the roof of an empty parking garage, in a deserted section of downtown. It's the beginning of February in Tulsa, so it's freezing. And you're already down two of your 24 hours.
After a quick shot at the parking garage, we headed to a park. We only needed a few minutes of footage there, and we weren't technically supposed to be there at 3 AM, so we made it snappy! I honestly felt like I was taking part in a robbery. Our van pulled up to the park and we all jumped out.
"Go, go, go!" someone whispered. Our two models got to work, we were rolling footage, and then — oh boy — we saw a security guard walking towards up. Luckily he didn't seem to be in too much of a hurry. Or maybe we just didn't look like that big a threat.
"Hurry up!" someone hissed. "Almost got it," our director Mia assured us. Then — right as the security guard reached our hastily built set — we had the footage. We jumped into the van and our vehicle peeled away from the curb in a cloud of dust!
Our next location was no less exciting. We filmed the car garage scene at a business that impounds cars. Sometimes impounded cars are never claimed, which means they end up in a creepy, dilapidated warehouse.
I'm pretty sure there were several dozen safety violations in the area we were working, but I was more concerned about the fact that it was 3:30 in the morning and my toes were turning into blocks of ice in the heels I wore. Add the pain of wearing heels to the pain of frozen toes; it's not pleasant.
But it was worth it. I got to be murdered on camera (something I had always dreamed of! No, seriously, 'death on camera' was right under 'death on stage' on my bucket list). Plus, when the awards were given, we earned 1st place in the College Division! It was a fabulous experience, and one I hope to repeat in the future.
Shout out to Morgan, Emily, Eron, Rim, Hezekiah, and Mia for making Triple B an awesome team!