Unleashed GRFF Micro 2026 Journal Entry

I had been told about the GRFF 1 minute film competition and this is the first year I remembered to sign up in advance.  I did not plan on making it a huge thing and just filming something with my kids.  Emerson has been flighty in the past about participation and wanted to quit midway through.  She committed to participating this year and I trusted her.  

​I wrote a quick story about people moving from Chicago to Grand Rapids to escape danger and the twist at the end being that they are the danger.  This story would be tough to edit down to a minute and it didn’t fit well with the assigned elements. 

The assigned elements were a forest, bubbles and the word “tarnish.”  After thinking about it I rewrote it and we read through it a few times at my computer.  I think this made her feel better about participation. Emerson doesn’t like the sound of her voice but I think it is a general confidence issue.  

The new story is about walking the dog and whether the dog should be leashed during the walk.  This has been a point of contention between me and maybe 30% of the dog owners in the neighborhood.  About a month in half ago I got in a screaming match with someone in our local trail because their dog was off leash.  I don’t think this is me being a Karen.

We only had 24 hours to submit the film, which is plenty of time as I’ve been involved with like 30 of these.  We finished our read through at about 9:30 and it was supposed to rain at 12:30.  

We took our dog Walter on a walk, after 2 people dropped out from being a camera person we brought a tripod and filmed on cellphone.  The tripod immediately broke which resulted in some bad shot composition and fewer shots of all 3 of us together.  The good thing is that it actually made it easier to edit together.  The dog was confused but did really well, he was confused when taken off leash for the movie and had problems not being by us as he was supposed to run away during film.  Also a few people walked by and I felt the need to tell them we are not off leash people this is just a film.  I don’t think they cared.  I also filmed myself picking up dog poop out of someone’s yard (for the film) and they came out thinking I was trying to prove something.

Emerson was great, better than I was hoping for about the only issue we had was using the bubbles in the film but it didn’t really matter.  She also spent time leaning sticks together to make a phone holder for a few shots.  She had a sense of ownership in this project that she hadn’t had in previous work, that and being with the dog improved her confidence and focus.  

Was finished shooting in about 40 minutes and it started to mist and slightly rain.  We finished the walk with a very confused dog and I got to editing.  

The everything cut was around 3 minutes but with a few shots being bad it was easy to get down to 90 seconds.  The final 30 were tough and required us to speed up or take out air from the movie that made it worse, but still watchable.  

Later that afternoon we asked Emerson’s mom to mute football while we filmed a quick ending.  The last line is an improv that buttoned up the story.

The film was continued to be filed down until it got to 59 seconds and submitted around 6pm Saturday against a deadline of 12pm Sunday.  It was the first one submitted.  Emerson enjoyed the final product, her brother Graydon is already planning out a sequel.

Next Saturday Emerson and I went to the Grand Rapids African Art Museum to watch the final product at 4pm.  She was excited and hyper.  We by happenstance sat in front of the judges so I told them a bit about our production and let Emerson do her charming kid thing.  She volunteered to introduce the film which I was not expecting and sealed our spot as most memorable team.

I wanted to stay downtown with Emerson until awards at 8pm and had made plans to meet up with Pasha who was doing a magazine article.  The rest of the family did not like this plan so we returned home where we ate and the kids to bed.  I returned at 8PM to a better theater at the same location, I was thrilled to win best screenplay which I mistakenly thought was best in show. I gave a speech because I don’t get to win very often but I don’t think it was too long.  The movie later won the actual best micro film but I had already spoke so I awkwardly bowed.  

The next morning Emerson took a minute to understand that we won the whole thing but was excited.  There is a small cash prize and I promised to split it with her, her brother is already gearing up to say it’s not fair.

​I made a slightly longer edit of the film and put it on social media.  Response there was positive as well.  Happy to complete a film, win and most importantly share the positive experience with my daughter.  I spend a lot of effort trying to “entertain” them and it was a nice change building something together.