When Film Co. decided to launch a 48 Hour Film Festival this fall, we honestly weren't sure what to expect. Our fall arts event has taken many different shapes over the years...and the new team of student officers in Film Co. were looking to make the format more consistent. They decided to return to a film-only format, extend the time frame beyond the 24 hours of yesteryear, and recruit the media arts faculty to help with prompts.
To that end, Chris Fletcher and I chose some unique objects and assigned each of them its own genre. During Friday's launch party, teams were selected in random order to choose one of these objects. The requirement was that this object must feature prominently in their films. The genre assigned to the object was revealed only after it was selected. After this point, students had only the weekend (48 hours to the minute) to create their films.
On Monday night, students, staff, and visitors gathered in Simpson to watch the movies. We were pleasantly surprised by the production quality! Students took time to integrate rack focuses, drone shots, and other advanced techniques. After the screening, many students participated in a Q&A. They shared the unique challenges and described the heightened energy of working with extreme time constraints, with one team detailing how they worked to change day to night and night to day in order to complete their shot list.
We also did an audience favorite vote, and had to create some makeshift ballots on the spot to account for the audience size! We were surprised to see a TIE between two very different films: The Life of a Cone and Buried Treasure.
We were proud of Film Co. for organizing and promoting a complex event. Students were generally pleased with the new format, and conversations are ongoing about how to build upon it in future years. Here's a quick summary of each movie and the student crew members who worked on it:
Bad Omen
Josie confronts the meaning of life in the face of imminent disaster and a strange hallucination...
Prompt: Plastic Flamingo, Disaster
Team: Andrew Bush, Jack Edwardsen, Josie Poehls
Buried Treasure
An innocent father-daughter date goes terribly wrong...
Prompt: Trowel, Thriller
Team: Caleb Fuglestad, Gavin Leuthold
0001
Dungeon meets time-loop and an unexpected escape...
Prompt: Newton’s Cradle, Science Fiction
Team: Katie Hauschild, Grace McClung, Michael Poehls, Andrew Sappia
The Hourglass Murder
Mysterious messages and unexplained disruptions lead to a deadly chase...
Prompt: Hourglass, Mystery
Team: Noah Larson, Sam Williams, Tytus Xiong
The Life of a Cone
Have you ever thought about what life is like for a cone?
Prompt: Traffic cone, Comedy
Team: Joao Boente, Omar Navarro
Congrats to everyone who survived the weekend, and thanks to all who came to support the filmmakers! We'll see you next year.
