Last weekend myself and eight hardy souls took on a task that many film savvy folks would consider suicidal – to produce a short film, from idea to authored DVD in a mere twelve hours. This insane mission was dolled out by the fine folks at Film Racing, who also sponsor the New York City Midnight Moviemaking Madness Screenwriting competition.

Here’s how it went. Before the day of the competish, you can gather equipment and locations, wrangle cast and crew, and prep any props and costumes you feel might come in handy. That’s it. And then the day of, at exactly 12 PM, the organisers release the Surprise Theme and Surprise Element that must be included in the film (maximum runtime of four minutes). You then have twelve hours to develop a story, write a screenplay, rehearse it, shoot, edit, create original music, do all your sound design and titles, and deliver an authored DVD. For many of us, this resulted in chaos, hilarity, over-caffeination, the appearance of our first gray hairs, and a breakneck sprint down the streets of DUMBO to the bar where the organizers were waiting, presumably soused on Brooklyn Local One and giggling at the pale, out of shape filmmakers hauling ass across the cobblestones.

There were some unexpected surprises. First off, I was much less stressed during this process than I normally am when entering production. Maybe it was the blink-of-an-eye turnaround, but the lack of control and preparation actually made it more enjoyable. Also, my team (Junction Jump, creatively named after my production company) got through the day without a single argument. This alone was nearly unbelievable. Especially when you take into consideration the fact that we even wrote the story as a collective. Normally you get two writers in a room and one of them leaves with a pout, let alone eight people, all with different ideas about what should be done. But the parameters left little time for ego, and everyone truly kept their eyes on the prize.

In the end, we didn’t quite make the deadline. We turned in our glorified rough cut at 1:55 AM, just under the final deadline for submission. But you know what? We actually made a good film. Funny, creative, well paced. I was so totally impressed. And because we made it in before two we were included in the screening, which was held at the Cobble Hill Cinemas last night. Sixteen shorts screened, and they couldn’t have been more different from each other. There were broad comedies, kung fu pictures, zombie flicks, romances, foreign art house parodies, and our film: the tale of a magical hairbrush, which teaches a stressed out business man an important life lesson through spontaneous, uncontrollable teleportation.

I learned so much through this process about what it takes to make a film, about what are truly necessities, and what’s just B.S. And after turning in a film in fourteen hours, I now know that anything’s possible. I could make a movie tomorrow. Hell, I should be shooting a scene while I’m writing this! I’ve got two hands!

So grab a camera, some good peeps, and do something! Maybe you only have a weekend. Maybe only a day. But just maybe you’ll surprise yourself, and become a better filmmaker because of it.