Oslo Film Jam 2026

the idea

This weekend I participated in a type of event I never thought I would - a 24-hour filmmaking challenge.

And while the story about the what, the how and the why I am doing to take a better care of my creativity starts somewhere else, and is a topic for another post, it’s important to mention it briefly here. Long story short, a handful of people I trust and whose opinion I treasure and hold dear to my heart, have given me an earful that I should create more. And share more. And because I’ve also realised that parts of it are a matter or only making the choice to do so, I’ve… decided to do so.

Which means that – in combination with deciding to stay in Oslo (another another story) – I’ve decided to do more random things, go out of my comfort zone in different ways, and expose myself to new experiences and trials.

The combination of the two led me to seeing the poster for Oslo Film Jam ‘26 at Fuglen sometime in early August and deciding that “why the hell not” is the right approach to it. So I signed up. Team of one. (And if you know me, you know that I do my best to embody the spirit of the great Elle Woods’ words “how hard can it be?!”)

So…

• Have I shot a single minute of video in my life? No.

• Have I got any plan on how to organize the production of a short movie in the span of 24h? No.

• Will this stop me? Also no.

I can see some of you shaking your heads as some of you know my creative side, some of you - the very organised one, and the most fortunate among you - the chaotic one.

And, yes, this is where all 3 of them collided, collaborated, and – with the power of my mind, cmd and ffmpeg – made a minute and a half movie in less than 16h. Yes, yes, we had 24h but I am old, and already have shitty sleeping habits, I wasn’t going to wreck my sleep schedule even more by staying up all night just to have a bit of fun and do something new.

the “get set, ready, go”

I had a vague idea of:

• what I am planning to do
• the tools I am planning to use, and that I am not allowed to learn new software on the go
• the limitations I need to impose on myself to get it done
• the fact that everything takes longer than expected.

And, for the most part, it worked!

I joined a bunch of cool people at 11pm on a Friday for the meetup and prop, line and location. I also asked them 2 questions (very black and white / no nuance type of answers):

I chatted with some of them and the kind organiser, found out that most of them are very committed to the whole 24h thing, and are ready to shoot here and now. They had cameras and mics and a whatnot ready! Impressive, really. There’s a limited amount of things that can make me be this ready at 11pm, and most of them can be done within the confines of my own home.

the goal

• have fun
• produce a short movie with the following restrictions:

the process & tools

So after I had executed my little survey and the line, prop and location were unveiled, I headed home for a nap. On my way home I charted some possible paths on what and how would be feasible within the next day and tried to sleep. I did that somewhat successfully until 7am when the thoughts and excitement that I get to create something new were becoming too loud and I got up.

Of course, this is the moment when I realised that my phone (main shooting device for this movie) is out of battery despite the organiser’s very kind reminder at least a week prior to avoid just that. But having to charge my phone also meant that I am forced to sit down and write an actual script, check the length of the voice over of the stop motion animation I had planned and trim, trim, trim it until it fit about a minute and a half.

I had to kill a lot of darling sentences, be proud!

Starting from about 3min of audio on first iteration, I cut about 3/4 of what I had written, and later on in the day reworked it to give me room for an idea or two I had in the meantime. Triaging early and setting myself to get something that’s 1min and a half probably saved the day and the movie.

Then it was just a matter of:

• taking all the goddamn pictures
• moving them from device to device
• realising I need to re-shoot something to add a detail I’ve forgotten about
• drawing whatever I had planned to draw (quick and dirty; very much so)
• touch up the recorded audio to fade in the proof of me not having drank enough water this day
• slapping it all together with the power of pure will, cmd and ffmpeg
• adding opening and ending credits

Tooling used (in order of use):

• obsidian - script and notes
• phone & tablet - voice recorder, camera, drawings
• a notebook and rubber stamps - lists
• LEGO (technically, lots of it) - main character for the bigger part of the movie, as well as background
• excel - (re-)calculation of the frames per second (fps) of the separate parts I was envisioning
• powerpoint - duplicating and moving some images around (I knew that the export from .ppt would be quicker than doing it on the tablet and moving images left and right)
• powershell - files renaming and creation of lists for ffmpeg to use and concatenate the pictures with the correct fps
• audacity - minor tuning of the audio file
• cmd & ffmpeg - creating the separate clips from pictures, appending them to one another, overlaying the audio on top, change final audio/video format
• subtitle workshop - adding timeframes to the script for subtitles in EN and BG (and, look, some liberties were taken with the subtitles timing)

the result

• BARE MINIMUM OF A MOVIE

Initially I wanted to spend maybe another hour to take a few more pictures, add the 2 things I forgot while I was switching gears and would provide better understanding, and edit the final version. (Struggling with perfectionism who?!)

Ultimately, I decided I will leave it as is. It’s imperfect, and it’s a product of 16-hour long day, and I am ok with the discomfort this brings me.

I should make space for more imperfection in my life.

the achievements

I am usually having a hard time seeing and internalising having done something as an achievement and something that should be celebrated. I just see it as done and simply move the goal post.

So, breaking the vicious pattern, today I am proud of:

• finishing it (honestly, I had too many ideas and they did try to lead me down the perfection path)
• producing a very lightweight movie - it’s barely 7.5MB
• being a one-person show and a jack of all trades
• putting out into the world mode proof that one does not need LLM(AI) to create art even if they’re not traditionally or academically trained
• I had fun indeed
• the blooper of breakage became the opening credit

the lessons (learned or reaffirmed)

• triage early; everything takes more time than expected
• I do not lack imagination and ideas
• after 4pm I lack the concentration to keep track of which part of the chaos might still be necessary
• done is better than perfect and I will never be done if I keep following every new idea I have
• should’ve practised some stuff beforehand and have some props ready to fit the narrative
• there’s few things I can’t do when I put my mind to it

Also, we should all be proud of my 10yo laptop for surviving yesterday. I really thought it might die on me once or twice.

So, yeah, that’s about it. Screening is on Tuesday, and I can’t wait to see the wonders the other people and teams created.

I had fun. Maybe I’ll do it again.