Mash-up: The 48 Hour Music Festival Movie

"We're Going to Entertain Ourselves"

With that one sentence I think David Camlin summed up not only his new documentary, "The 48 Hour Music Festival Movie," but also Portland's music scene itself.

Which, if you think about it, gets kinda meta considering the movie is about how 30 musicians from local bands mixed and mashed up to create new bands, practice and play in them, all in 48 hours.

But thinking about it that way would only make your brain hurt.

Know this: Camlin and the crew of videographers, sound engineers and others produced a love letter to Portland's music scene from the very event that seemed to bring out the best in local music.

Back in February, people packed themselves all the way up to the rafters at Space Gallery to watch the 48 Hour Music Festival. Members of bands like Confusatron, Cougars Kill Cobras, Fire on Fire, Gully and Baltic Sea, among others, emerged on the stage, 48 hours after coming together for the first time, as groups like Prism Camp,  Mexicutioners, and Snack Island.

While the anxious crowd that night got to witness the finished product, Camlin wanted to draw back the curtain and show the sleepless (literally) hours of confusion, practice and passion prior to the show.

"(People) only got to see the end result," he said. ""So this will be a hint of what went into it."

A musician who had played in Conifer as well as solo gigs as Cosmic Conflict, Camlin's also a filmmaker and those instincts told him there was a story to be told.

He rounded up eight camera operators, from pros to students learning the game at Southern Maine Community College, and they staked out practice spaces around the city. As director, Camlin told the film crews that around two hours of footage from each band's practice should do the trick. He ended up with somewhere between 25 - 26 hours of footage.

"I'm happy no one listened to me. Which is a weird thing to hear from a director, I guess," he said.

Something else Camlin did not expect was the DIY nature of the project, matching the production of the film. He and his crew did everything short of beg, borrow and steal to get the equipment and film stock, and called on favors from people at Portland's Community Television Network and Satronen Sound.

What does come through is the similar drive and passion musicians and the film's crew share. Camlin said Portland has something special in its creative makeup that causes people seek out and follow artistic endeavors.

"For a city our size, there's a real hunger to have these artistic things to consume," he said.

What helps makes Portland special is our geography and the climate, Camilin said. Since Maine is sometimes overlooked by touring acts, that creates an opportunity for local acts to play more, work harder and collaborate with others, he said. At the same time the long cold winters force people to find any way to keep insanity at bay.

What you get with the "48 Hour Music Festival Movie" is a snapshot of a time and place that seems to capture everything we all love about Portland's music scene and all the people behind it. Maybe it's the bassist or drummer who can't help but join another band, or the singer looking for a new genre to experience or the fans who stay dedicated and ready for the next turn. Camlin said the film is for all of them and anyone else who's interested in local music.

And even if that wasn't the case, at the least we'd have another great option to entertain ourselves.