A Difficult Game
A Difficult Game
Teen Film Challenge / A Difficult Game series
August 6th, 2023
A group of five friends get together to compete in a board game. Upon selecting their hands randomly, they each experience a strange and vivid vision into a life where they each have a different occupation. Some are better than others, but in all they are met by strange figures who looks like themselves, but disheveled. Upon realizing what they have all seen, they scramble to put away the game before being met with the same figures once again.
Status: Available
Watch It
Cast & Crew
Director
Logan Bauer
Cast
Logan Bauer as Lloyd Wayne (Teacher)
Grayson Beckham as Leslie DeChristopher (Lawyer)
Gabe Neal as Pete Garrett (Janitor)
Ryan Sams as Cameron Johnson (Farmer)
Aaralyn Schulte as Deborah Franke (Actress)
Francis Chan as Court Audience Member
Team Leader
Logan Bauer
Producers
Logan Bauer
Grayson Beckham
Ryan Sams
Writers
Logan Bauer
Grayson Beckham
Editor
Logan Bauer
Cinematography
Logan Bauer
Gabe Neal
Francis Chan
Grayson Beckham
Aaralyn Schulte
Ryan Sams
Composer
Francis Chan
Graphic Design
Logan Bauer
Grayson Beckham
Board Game Design
Karis Bauer
Logan Bauer
Ryan Sams
Casting Director
Ryan Sams
Sound
Francis Chan
Gabe Neal
Logan Bauer
Special Thanks
Neal Ryan
Becky Schulte
Matt Kemper
Alex Smith
Aunt Jocelyn
Lanie Berlage
Jessica Bauer
Jason Bauer
The Sams Family
Runtime: ≈ 6 minutes
Added in version 9.0.0
Last updated in version 24.5.0
Edited using Adobe Premiere Pro. Shot on iPhone 13.
© 2023 L.A.B. Productions. All rights reserved.
"Teen Film Challenge" © 2023 The Academy of Cinematic Arts / The Underground.
Made for the 2023 Teen Film Challenge.
Winner - Weekend B-Roll Challenge
August 15th, 2023
Presented to...
Logan Bauer - A Difficult Game
This was won by allowing for a representative from the Academy of Cinematic Arts, Lanie Berlage, to film B-Roll footage of the filming process of A Difficult Game. At the Premiere event, a random drawing selected L.A.B. Productions as the winner of the prize, a gift card.
Nomination- Best Original Score
August 15th, 2023
Presented to...
Francis Chan - A Difficult Game
Francis Chan was nominated for Best Original Score for the film, alongside five other composers.
Gallery
A Difficult Game poster.
A Difficult Game thumbnail.
Title card.
2023 Teen Film Challenge logo.
Grabbing the cards.
The group sitting together at a table.
The Lawyer testifying.
The discheveled Lawyer.
The Janitor mopping.
The Janitor mopping (again).
The discheveled Janitor.
The Teacher teaching.
The disheveled Teacher.
The Farmer looking back.
The disheveled Farmer.
The Actress looking worryingly.
The disheveled Actress.
"Deal us in."
Title card, again.
Directed by Logan Bauer.
A Difficult Game logo.
A Difficult Game logo (longways).
The 2023 TFC logo.
Behind-the-Scenes Gallery
For more, visit the Bloopers - A Difficult Game page.
The card game box outside, designed by Karis Bauer.
The card game box inside, designed by Karis Bauer.
A behind-the-scenes image of Aaralyn showing the fake blood, with Grayson and Ryan behind her.
A behind-the-scenes image of Logan acting as the teacher while Gabe films.
The slips containing the title and genre of the film drawn at the Kickoff Event on August 3rd.
The original A Difficult Game logo, drawn by Grayson Beckham.
An unused card that was planned to come onscreen when the Lawyer entered.
An unused card that was planned to come onscreen when the Janitor entered.
An unused card that was planned to come onscreen when the Teacher entered.
An unused card that was planned to come onscreen when the Farmer entered.
An unused card that was planned to come onscreen when the Actor entered.
An image found in the files of the project.
The shopping list, where "light shirt" was mistaken for "strobe light."
Note drawn by Grayson.
The hairspray used as fake blood in the movie.
The prop HCl that went unused. It would've been held by the disheveled Teacher.
A card used in the game. It reads "death is always lurking in the shadows."
The cards, digitized. The gray in the background reads "A Different Game."
The original back of the cards.
The error message found when exporting for the first three times.
The announcement post for A Difficult Game 2: This Time, It's Even More Difficult (Than The First Time) (2026), which was posted on April Fool's Day 2025.
Premiere Gallery
The premiere occurred on August 15th, 2023.
The Teen Film Challenge 2023 Premiere & Awards Ceremony booklet
The 'Meet the Filmmakers' page of the booklet. Under the segment for A Difficult Game, Aaralyn Schulte is missing and Karis Bauer is mistakenly labeled as 'Kris.'
The Visa gift card won for allowing Lanie to film b-roll footage for the film montage.
The nomination for Francis Chan for Best Original Film Score.
The PowerPoint slide for the Best Original Film Score nominees.
The cast and crew for A Difficult Game at the Premiere event.
The title card for A Difficult Game in the TFC 2023 Showcase Video.
Francis Chan reading over the script in the TFC 2023 Showcase Video. This is the second shot of the video itself.
Logan Bauer filming Grayson Beckham as the Lawyer in the TFC 2023 Showcase Video.
Gabe Neal as the Janitor in the montage part of the TFC 2023 Showcase Video. This footage is simply reused from the film itself.
"The winner of the Behind-the-Scenes Challenge is... L.A.B. Productions."
Logan Bauer accepting the award for the Behind-the-Scenes Challenge.
A screenshot from the Academy of Cinematic Arts' Instagram page, featuring the cast of A Difficult Game as the first image on one of their posts, which was posted on August 18th.
The same image on their Facebook page.
The cover page for the AP United States Government and Politics Court Visit Project featuring screenshots from this film. See the corresponding trivia entry.
Script
Filmmaking Process Timeline
August 3rd, 2023
Logan buys New Nintendo 3DS XL from Grayson.
They go to Sports Gallery.
Attended the TFC 2023 Kickoff Event. The title and genre were drawn there.
On the car ride home, Logan thought up the plot synopsis after talking to Grayson about ideas before leaving the event.
Come back home to write the script and eat Chic-Fil-A.
The Premiere Pro file was made. The title card was made as well.
Grayson designed the temporary logo.
Ryan Sams began work on the game box.
Grayson wrote the Laywer's speech.
Aaralyn arrived and planning continued.
Made a shopping list for items to get at Party City.
She left, and shortly after Karis helped design the game box.
The script was finished.
The digitized logo was made, without the red blood-esque design on the text.
August 4th, 2023
The logo was finished.
The cards were designed.
Ryan went to get his props, costume, and to print the cards.
He dropped off the printed cards and they were cut out.
He went to Party City with Aaralyn.
The four met up at St. X after getting the needed rooms unlocked.
Gabe arrived at St. X.
The Teacher scenes were filmed (excluding the Disheveled scenes). This began filming at 1:08.
The scenes at the table playing the card game were filmed (excluding the Disheveled scenes).
Francis arrived on set.
Grayson went to change into his suit and tie for his scenes. Lanie arrived for footage in the documentary.
The Lawyer scenes were filmed (excluding the Disheveled scenes).
The Janitor scenes were filmed (excluding the Disheveled scenes).
The Actress scenes were filmed (excluding the Disheveled scenes).
The Farmer scenes were filmed (excluding the Disheveled scenes).
All got into their Disheveled looks.
The Disheveled Actress scenes were filmed.
The cut post-credits scene was filmed.
The Disheveled Janitor scenes were filmed.
The Disheveled group scene in the card game room was filmed.
The Disheveled Lawyer scenes were filmed.
The Disheveled Teacher scenes were filmed.
The Disheveled Farmer scenes were filmed.
The game box closing was filmed at 4:16, ending the filming process. The entire process took 4 hours and 8 minutes.
Throughout the filming process, Francis made and recorded more music.
Everything was cleaned up and taken home.
Sent clips to the flash drive for editing to begin the next day.
August 5th, 2023
Edited in chronological order of the events of the film.
Cut the post-credits scene.
Edited the entire movie up until the credits. This process took many hours.
August 6th, 2023
Created the Soundtrack - A Difficult Game video project.
Exported it and uploaded it to YouTube.
Edited the credits.
Attempted to export the project for the first time. It resulted in error 39 (see Behind-the-Scenes Gallery image 1).
Began editing Bloopers - A Difficult Game in CapCut while exporting the main video.
Attempted to export the project for the second time. It resulted in error 39 (see Behind-the-Scenes Gallery image 1).
Continued editing the bloopers.
Attempted to export the project for the third time. It resulted in error 39 (see Behind-the-Scenes Gallery image 1).
Continued editing the bloopers.
Cleared storage space on the flash drive.
Attempted to export the project for the fourth time. It worked!
Uploaded it to YouTube as an unlisted video.
Submitted the form to the TFC at around 3:35pm.
Uploaded the bloopers, also as an unlisted YouTube video.
At about 4:30pm, both the main project and the bloopers were made public on YouTube.
At 8:00pm, submissions for the TFC closed.
August 15th, 2023
At 6:40pm, the Premiere Event began.
A Difficult Game was shown sixth at the event. (28:37)
In a drawing for the Visa card, L.A.B. Productions won and Logan Bauer came onstage to accept it. (1:50:00ish)
Francis Chan was nominated for the Best Film Score award.
Trivia
This film was made for the 2023 Teen Film Challenge run by The Underground and the Academy of Cinematic Arts. The challenge required a title and genre to be randomly drawn, and thus the title "A Difficult Game" and the genre "drama" were chosen by random out of two buckets.
This film marks the first L.A.B. Productions film in full 1080p.
There was originally a post-credits scene that paid homage to Ferris Bueller's Day Off, where the Actress tells the audience to go home. It can be seen in the blooper video. The primary reason it was recorded was because the premiere event would be watched in that very theater.
Just prior to the kickoff event, Logan bought Grayson's New Nintendo 3DS XL off of him.
In the script, the characters are instead referred to by their actors' names, not the characters' names.
In the TFC 2023 Showcase Video, L.A.B. Productions is the only team shown to not be using professional camera equipment.
The following tracks in the original soundtrack used to have alternate names:
"The Film Commences" was originally titled "Beat 3."
"Here Comes Trouble" was originally titled "I Like Banging Things."
"Deathmotif" was originally titled "Ooo, Tension."
Each time "Deathmotif" is used, it is sped up 20%. The pitch is kept unchanged.
On December 3rd, 2024, photos from the film were used on the cover page of Logan Bauer's AP United States Government and Politics course Court Visit project, showing the Lawyer's scene. This website page was cited in the Works Cited.
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