It all began at 3:00pm on Saturday, December 5. The advanced video production class received an email notification with the song they would have 24 hours to make a music video for, One Republic’s “Love Runs Out”. It is all a part of the Orange County Film Festival’s 24 hour film making contest. Two hours of story pitching and brainstorming finally yielded the beginnings of a concept: an amateur Drag Queen who’s father doesn’t approve. “We had a clear idea of what we needed to do and executed very well.” David Lazenby (12) explained.

The next step? Off to the Goodwill Store to buy costumes. Two hours later, after costumes were purchased and a quick dinner of Jack-in-the-Box, the filming phase was ready to begin…only 20 hours left. Filming and editing took place throughout the night at one of the student’s homes, with students sleeping in short shifts (if at all). This phase of the project involved planning out and shooting 4 sequences in various rooms of the house. At this point, the students were just making it through the night with junk food and soda. Now this is when the time of day started to get to the students. They started to think everything was funny, and the producer even fell asleep at his computer…twice.

6:00 in the morning brought a realization, 9 hours left and the need to change filming locations. An additional scene shot, a quick “breakfast”, and they were off to YLHS to film in the theater. 7 hours to go. Two hours of shooting various scenes in the theater, and then it was back to home base. 5 hours left….

Back at the house, the final scene was shot. 3-4 hours of editing sounds like a lot of time; it isn’t. The scenes all had to be woven together seamlessly. Adjustments had to be made for lighting, musicality, and sequencing. This phase ran the group right up to the 3:00 deadline…but the video was finished. “Our scheduling was almost perfect. The only reason we were almost late is because of stupid rendering” Eldon Shih (12) confided in me. Want to see the result? Follow Mustang Mix on Youtube to be the first to know when it gets published!