Making an animated film in 48 hours? It's surprisingly easy.

What can one ambitious git with a laptop and Unreal Engine make in just 2 days?

This. This is what you can make.

Every year the Sydney Underground Film Festival hosts Take48, a 48 hour filmmaking challenge where (you guessed it) you have to create a film from scratch over a weekend.

Every year I sign up. Every year, I question my sanity.

In 2024, I decided to go further down the ambitious route and created my first Unreal Engine animated short film. Up to this point, my animation skills were limited to 2D motion graphics work in After Effects and I ingeniously thought this high-pressure environment would be the perfect time to learn new software.

For once, I was right.

H was successfully made from start to finish in 47 hours AND was shortlisted to screen at the festival in September.

According to the rules, it had to:

• Feature a close-up shot

• Feature a watermelon

• Include the phrase "I thought you should know"

  
  

In case you were wondering what the plan kind of looked like, here is an overview:

Hour 1 - Develop the storyboard from the prompts given and then get cocky.

Hour 2-6 - Pick an Unreal environment off the marketplace and spend time adjusting it. Worry that you've spent too much time fixing it. You'll also need to pick you character models off Mixamo and check that they have animations you'll need.

Hour 7-9 - First trial renders with character in place. They suck. Why does it keep trying to render a camera that isn't on sequencer?

Hour 10-11 - Sleep off my disappointment.

Hour 12 - Caffeinate. Freak out and re-render the opening shot. This one will restore your confidence.

Hour 13-24 - Continue rendering shots straight to .mov. Each clip took between 10 and 45 minutes on a laptop. During times that it is rendering, start recording the voices on your phone. It'll need to go through a voice changer like voice.ai

Hour 25-35 - Keep creating shots on sequencer. While they render out, open up Premiere and start placing the exported clips onto the timeline. You'll have to edit while you're rendering.

Hour 36 - Time for a nap

Hour 38-41 - All the clips are rendered out. Start marking the ones that are questionable and redo them.

Hour 42-45 - Finalise the edit with sound effects and credit sequence.

Hour 46 - Haphazardly check your final edit with music. Redo it because the balance is really off. Pray to the gods you can upload on time.

Hour 47 - Ship it. Take a bow (and a stiff dink).

See more about H, the movie