Forty-eight hours is a tight timeframe to write, shoot, and edit a movie. Granted, it's not quite as tight as the 24 hour challenge hosted in other parts of the country, but that extra day just means better quality movies, right?
Or at least, that's the hope. So for this third annual edition of Alaska's 48-Hour Film Challenge, 26 teams of local filmmakers spent the weekend of Oct. 5-7 creating films from scratch, and now, they'll get to see those films on the big screen -- whether they're ready for it or not. According to event organizer John Norris, those 26 teams entering the competition was up from 18 teams the year before, with 21 teams finishing and submitting films by the drop-dead date this year.
Filmmakers received their instructions at 7 p.m. last Friday, and frantically shot and edited their films before the deadline on Sunday evening. According to Norris, the event is similar to the 24-hour film festival in that each team has to integrate a specific set of prompts into their finished product, but that may be where the similarities end.
For this year's event, the prompts were threefold: all teams had to incorporate the use of a black t-shirt, include the line "This is heavy," and shoot their entries based on a randomly assigned title -- in order to avoid any one team gaining too much of an edge from pre-writing its entire film.
On Oct. 12, 21 teams will experience the thrill of witnessing their creation screened in front of a live audience at the Alaska Experience Theater, in downtown Anchorage. The audience favorite will be determined by popular vote and the winning team will be awarded a cash prize. Norris says he will announce Friday's winner publicly on Facebook and on his personal website.
Alaska Experience Theater will host two screenings on Friday, one at 7 p.m. and a second at 10 p.m. Tickets are $5 in advance online, and $7 at the door. Norris recommends booking online, in the event that the venue sells out before the 10 p.m. screening. Unfortunately, beer and wine will not be available for purchase this year.
In the meantime, here is last year's winner, by popular vote, Woodruff Laputka's "Contained."
Contained (2011) from Laputka Films on Vimeo.
For further information visit Alaska Experience Theater here or the 48-hour Film Challenge Facebook event page here.