Today we’d like to introduce you to Alyne Harding
Hi Alyne, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I fell in love with filmmaking after seeing “Return of the Jedi” NINE TIMES in the theater shortly after the tragic loss of my younger brother. This early fascination drove me to explore the world of acting, first by studying Drama for a year at Sam Houston State University and then venturing into the eclectic theater scene of Bryan, Texas. Eventually, I realized I wanted to create the content, not just perform in it, so I switched my focus to Film & Video Production.
My first experience with the 48 Hour Film Project was in Houston on a team of improvisers that I’d befriended back in 2007. My involvement was small, given that I had two very young children to take care of, but impactful as I provided the idea that inspired the final script. I moved to Austin the next year and tried several times to get on a 48HFP team, with no luck. My experience and training was “stale.” All anyone saw was a working mother with big dreams. Sometimes, however, big dreams and a little determination is really all you need.
Fast forward, I’ve been the Austin City Producer for the 48 Hour Film Project since 2013. A varied assortment of event, social media, research and legal dayjobs provided me with the tenacity and skills needed to tackle the challenge and transform the Austin project into something that would truly welcome everyone – even working mothers with big dreams.
I expanded the local project to TWICE a year in 2015! It was about that time when I met the woman who would soon become my co-producer, Keira Marti. In 2022, the Dallas project was suddenly in need of a Producer and a colleague in the Netherlands double-dog-dared me to accept the challenge of producing a 48HFP in another town. I couldn’t bear to see Texas lose a 48 city, and I still had contacts from when I’d lived in Dallas many years ago. My daughter, Lorelai Harding, officially came on as our Assistant Producer that year. This experience immediately paid off when the Dallas winning film advanced all the way to a special screening at the Cannes Short Film Corner in 2023! I was honored to join the winning team in Cannes and experience the beautiful chaos for myself.
It’s been fascinating to discover how each city takes on its own unique personality, challenges and benefits.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, it really shook all of us in the 48HFP. We’d always been all about in-person events, face-to-face networking, etc. Part of the challenge was being in the right place by a certain time. How would we continue under lockdown conditions? Many of my fellow CPs chose to just wait it out, but I was determined to find a way keep moving forward. I attended Zoom meetings to brainstorm solutions, participated in experimental “Stuck At Home” 48s, researched online options, such as YouTube and beta-tested the Digital Dropoff created by our in-house web designer.
Once I was confident that it could be done, I reached out to HQ and my fellow Texas CPs and offered to “adopt” any New Year’s Special registrants from Texas cities that chose to wait out the pandemic. After all, if we were doing this virtually, geography was no longer an impediment. It was eventually decided that we would work together on a four-city collaborative project with me as the Lead. We held a Zoom Kick-off recorded in my den at home and used Bingo Balls to randomly assign genres to each team. All four cities shared the same three elements (Character, Prop, Line of Dialog) and were screened on a platform called Eventive, which I quickly learned to set up the event pages for. I also walked other CPs through the process throughout the year.
As part of the Stuck At Home 48, I taught myself how to edit video on Wondershare Filmora and FINALLY created my very own short film for the first time in my life! It’s not great, but it’s mine and I’m pretty proud of it. I learned a lot from that experience that helped me create the virtual screeners for Eventive, as well as screeners for two other virtual 48HFP projects in other states.
I aim to build my reputation on fairness, kindness and positivity. It can be frustrating to answer the same questions over and over, or to face criticism with dignity and patience, but I love my participants and think of them as family, even when I’m at the end of my rope. I try to remember that everyone is dealing with something they can’t always share, so sometimes even the smartest, sweetest and most capable individual is going to be difficult to work with. Often, I’ll reach out to my fellow city producers to share my frustrations so that I can face my participants’ questions with a genuine smile and a kind word. It helps knowing I’m not alone.
One of the most frustrating challenges is convincing others that you run a fair competition. I always try to mix up our judges every year to avoid any appearance of bias. I truly believe in the spirit of the 48 — to encourage everyone to make their voices known, to learn what they are capable of and to identify weaknesses so they can strive to improve in those areas) and it serves no purpose to influence the outcome. Still, even the best judges are only human and everyone thinks their film is the best ever — and it IS, to them, as it should be. But life doesn’t administer participation trophies and a winner MUST be chosen by someone to advance to the next round. My own favorites are rarely the winners. It can be heartbreaking, and I try to encourage all of our participants to learn from the experience and to submit their shorts to other festivals that may appreciate them more. Let what they’ve made with us fuel their creativity and success in the future.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
What is the 48HFP? It’s a timed-filmmaking competition in which teams make a short film, from scratch, in just 48 hours. On Friday night, team representatives draw a genre from a hat. They are then given a character, prop and line to include in their films. On Sunday night, the films are turned in, and teams celebrate… or collapse. All submitted films, even those that miss the deadline, are then screened at a local theater in front of an audience of filmmakers, friends and families. Eligible films are judged by industry professionals and compete for a variety of awards. The coveted Best Film will advance to our global competition, Filmapalooza. The top films from “Filma” go directly to a special screening at the Cannes Film Festival!
In addition to the 48HFP, I often counsel the creatives I meet with outside-the-box advice to face challenges. I promote the creative content made by members of my “film family” and enjoy writing copy and crafting graphic designs for posters, flyers and social media marketing. I’ve even designed a few logos!
A year or so after my first Filmapalooza (the championship round of the 48 Hour Film Project), one of the South African film students I’d befriended reached out and asked me to proofread a script he’d written for a contest. The contest required the script to be in English, which was not the student’s first language. I read it and made some suggestions. The script made it to the final round of the contest and won an award!
Currently, I’m on a mission to make Texas more hospitable to the creative arts and promote dynamic involvement by children and adults of every age and on every level of experience and training, whether as a hobby or in pursuit of a career. The 48HFP is part of that mission.
My goals for 2024 were to:
1. Participate in the CC7D, a similar timed-filmmaking competition lasting 7 days and held in my hometown of Corpus Christi.
2. Launch a YouTube series based on local creatives I’ve met through the 48HFP, and
3. Gather local film festival directors, meetup leaders and creative organization managers to form a kind of co-op or partnership in order to promote communication, cross-promotion, collaboration and to avoid competing with each other. Austin creatives are already competing with tech companies for space and resources, and the techies have deeper pockets. Together, we can thrive and grow.
This Summer, Keira and I got to see how the other half lives when we participated in the CC7D, We recruited members of our 48 film family — a team lead, a few actors and crew, a fellow CP from Wisconsin and the woman who first introduced me to the 48, Dawn Robertson. It was such a pleasure working on the film, revisiting my home, meeting creatives from South Texas and, finally, sharing the screening with my family! I am working on getting more involved with acting and on-site productions in the near future.
Admittedly, I’m terribly behind on the last two of these, but I’m not giving up. 2024 has been a difficult year for everyone I know. I don’t expect next year to be any better, but it’ll be much worse if I quit.
Despite many accolades and contributions that Keira and I have made to the film community, it is still an uphill battle to earn respect as a female filmmaker. Women CAN do it all, but men rarely believe it – or worse, they can’t conceive how arduous it is for us compared to their own experience. Both Keira and I are still striving to find paid work in the creative industry.
Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
I had basically given up ALL of my own dreams in 2012 when a wonderful opportunity appeared in my email inbox – the Austin 48 Hour Film Project needed a new City Producer! But my life was in chaos due to a divorce and I knew I couldn’t handle it just then. Letting that go was one of the hardest decisions of my life.
A year later, as I settled into a new routine, the opportunity appeared again! This time, I had to give it my best shot. I applied for the City Producer role with little hope I’d be considered… but I was! A wonderful man named Brian Bowers interviewed me by phone and decided that, although I was a little light in experience, I more than made up for it in enthusiasm. I got the job!
That opportunity totally changed my life! I went from trudging through day jobs, living hand-to-mouth to provide for my kids, to meeting countless creatives, traveling the world, expanding my own creative talents and realizing that “impossible” can be made possible if you only TRY!
I have always wanted to live a life without regret. When I was young, I thought that meant avoiding risk and, therefore, never doing anything you’d regret. But that’s limiting, nigh impossible and incredibly boring! Instead, I’ve resolved to never regret anything I’ve ever done – to learn from my mistakes so that they become lessons and I can grow from them. It takes time to find the lesson – I’m still hunting for a few, but once you embrace the idea that “failure IS an option,” you become less fearful and more confident in your ability to adapt and overcome any obstacle.
Pricing:
- • New Year’s Special: <$150
- • Registration: $150-200
- • Screening Tickets: $10-15
- • Award Show Tickets: $15-20
- • Promo Events: $0-20
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.48hourfilm.com/austin
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/atx48hfp
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/48hourfilmaustin
- Youtube: www.youtube.com/@austin48hourfilmproject
- LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/noblwish
- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@austin48hourfilmproject
Image Credits
1 & 2: Filmapalooza 2024 in Lisbon
3: 2024 Austin Kick-Off at Captain Quack’s on Menchaca
4: 2024 CC7D Premiere Screenings with family
5 & 6: 2023 Cannes Film Festival
7: Performing in the 2024 CC7D in Corpus Christi
8: Best Film poster for the 2022 Austin 48 Hour Film de Femme Project
