Where sanity goes to die: My first Edinburgh 48 Hour Film Project

Fellini had more than two days and a Greggs pasty

Jul 01, 2025

I think it was someone whose name I don’t remember who once said, “Say YES and figure out later,” and I must inform you that many of my life choices have been made based on a similar motto. 80% of the time, it works. Like moving to another country (YOLO?), accepting jobs consisting of using software I’ve never heard of (“I mean, how hard can it be?”), or pretty much every time I’ve booked a flight without requesting the days off from my manager first (oopsie!). This was one of those 80% situations.

Let me explain: Me, back home one evening after the screening of a short film where the only thing I could think was “Seriously???” and “I could have done that””, opened my laptop, said: FUCK IT, and signed up for the madness that is the 48 Hour Film Project.

For those unfamiliar with this film festival: you get a genre, a character, a prop, and a line of dialogue on a Friday evening, and by Sunday evening, you need to have a complete 4-7 minute short film. It’s pretty cool because there’s also a panel of TV & Film professionals who give awards in different categories. No pressure. And it’s a worldwide thing, happening in many cities during the year (this year, for example, Edinburgh was the same weekend as Tokyo). SO: from script to screen, sound design to credits and poster…it’s cinema designed as sport! And I hate sports, but I love cinema, so the two possible scenarios were:

Best scenario: I make a cool film and we might even get nominated for an award?? (Probably the award for Most Delulu).

Worst scenario: I get humbled like never before in my life ~~and die of embarrassment.~~

So, what follows now is a chronicle of the descent to madness that was that weekend. Please, walk with me.

Friday 23rd May - Kick-off @ The Caves

Drawing our two genres (All photos of the events by Cherryman Media)

Friday night was kick-off, with an event at the Caves, which provided this extroverted-introvert girlie the best icebreaker I could have thought of, since we got married last July in that same venue. But of course, I overplayed it, which meant that during the entire competition, I’m pretty sure we were known as Those Guys Who Got Married Last Year In The Caves.

The event was Twin Peaks themed, and Sam and Louise, the 48HFP organizers for Scotland, prepared a lovely evening that got me all excited for the weekend to come. Shout out to them, because I think the organization of the whole competition has been impeccable, both technically and VIBE-wise!

For my first year, I wanted to keep it really minimal and see if I could make it. Again, no presh. Of the 60 teams that entered the challenge this year, the one I was leading was the smallest one, formed by two people: me and an award-winning Sound Designer & Composer who also happens to share a toilet and a marriage certificate with me. Because we named our team What a Story, Mark!, we were the last ones to draw our two genres on Friday. We got Holiday or Drama, and even though sometimes (especially with my blood relatives) the first thing inevitably leads to the second, we decided to choose just Holiday.

Apart from the genre, for this year, the character was Sandy Rose, a waitress, the prop was a key, and the line of dialogue was “It’s not what you think!”. After the kick-off event finished and we had all the info, I came up with the idea for the script on the way home from the Caves, so we decided to shoot the first scene right away on Leith Walk, as we needed it to be at night. Suddenly, it started to RAIN, which was a bit of a pain in the arse when it came to continuity because my clothes were getting wetter every time I was repeating a take, but that’s showbiz for ye!

Saturday 24th May - Filming!

The next day I woke up at 11 am because this Writer/Director/Actress/Model and Philantropist needs her beauty sleep and because overconfident is my middle name. We shot in many places around Edinburgh, which was fun! But let me tell you, it’s pretty hard to direct AND act at the same time, because for some reason, telepathy hasn’t been invented yet, so I sometimes would expect that my camera operator (Hervé) would know EXACTLY when to zoom in, when to zoom out, etc. This caused one little disagreement when we were filming a scene of me eating a cupcake in front of The Shore, which from the outside totally looked like I was an influencer having a fight with my Instagram husband over the filming of a reel. I promise you it’s not that. We love each other. Did I tell you we got married in the Caves last year?

After some hours filming outside, we moved to the next set by 6 pm. And by "set", I mean our living room. We needed the light to change outside for continuity in the windows, so after taking a nap, Hervé started editing the footage we already had - and I think this was a fantastic idea that saved us so much time the next day.

We spent the rest of the night filming the second (and last) part of the story, finishing around 2 am.

Sunday 25th May - Editing & Submitting

My Editor (Hervé) woke up at the same time as my Sound Designer (Hervé): at 6 am. Why? Nobody knows, but I thank the Gods he did because editing turned out to be a longer process than I expected. I had nothing to do there in the editing suite (our kitchen), so I went out to grab us some emotional support Pret. I was so excited to see how our film would come together that I barely slept the night before.

The clock was a constant, nagging presence. And I mean literally. There was a giant countdown on the 48HFP website, and it was mesmerizing. Every render felt interminably long. Every tweak, a potential disaster. There were moments of pure despair ("This is terrible! We're rubbish!"), like when we decided to use ADR ironically for the spoken parts, as homage to The Room, followed by bursts of elation when a scene finally clicked into place. It’s a good thing that this took place between two people who fart in front of each other, because I can’t imagine the same nervousness in a room with 15 crew members.

The last 20 minutes before submitting the film were the 20 Most Stressful minutes of my 2025 so far. I wanted to pass out and wake up once the film was submitted. And then, with 9 minutes to spare before the final deadline at 7.30 pm, we uploaded. Time is a social construct anyways.

And here it is, my friends: Staycation. My first short film ever, my first baby!

3rd-5th June - Screenings @ The Cameo

The hard part was done, so we decided to go crazy and watch ALL the 60 films participating this year, which were spread across 5 screenings during 3 days at The Cameo, my favourite cinema in Edinburgh. Because why not? Part of the fun is to watch what other teams have done with the same amount of time as you. It’s kind of like when Molly Mae said: “We all have the same 24 hours in a day as Beyoncé”, only that this time it wasn’t complete nonsense. Every film was a testament to the raw talent and dedication within the Scotland creative community, and I felt so happy to be a part of it. Watching our film screen alongside all the other incredible entries was an experience in itself, and watching it with our friends around made it even more surreal. The night of our screening, I went to bed in a cloud of happiness. I had finished something, and I had released it into the world. That’s all that mattered.

9th June - Awards Ceremony @ The Caves

Gurl, this felt like the Oscars to me. We jumped out of our chairs when we heard we were nominated for Best Use of Genre, and we jumped a second time when we won Best Poster. Are you kidding me?? Our silly little short film got an award! As of that moment, we were on the list of winners of 2025, and for a first timer like me, that’s prettttty cool.

In classic Cynthia fashion, I completely froze when picking up the award, so I just said THANK YOU like 15 times.

The Best Film award was for Last Train Home, which was incredibly good. Back at the screenings, when I saw that film, I whispered to Hervé in the cinema: MARK ME - this is the film that’s gonna win. And BOOM!! Good Spidersense! My other favourites were (in no particular order): Two Girls Summon a Demon, The Highland Heart, Devour, Phantom Feedback, and To Hunt a Haggis. You can find more info on the 48HFP website, and some of them on Youtube.

Would I Do It Again?

Carter Ferguson, a twice-winner of Best Director from past years, wrote on his blog: “It takes about a year to recover from shooting a 48HFP and for me up to 2 years to forget just how much of a nightmare it was to shoot the last one.”

Yes, it was a non-stop weekend. Yes, I aged 10 years in the 20 minutes before submitting the film. But for a procrastinator like me, the satisfaction of creating something from scratch in 48 hours is an unparalleled feeling. I am also happy that we didn’t plan anything in advance, not even locations. For me, this was an experiment in improvisation. One that turned out better than I expected! So yes, I can’t wait for next year’s…

What can I say? I’m just happy to be included.