The premise is simple. A genre, character, prop and line of dialogue (such as “I’ll Be Back” from The Terminator) are randomly given on a Friday evening. For example: film noir, whiny Woody Allen guy, a harmonica and “Nobody puts Baby in a corner”. Go! You now have 48 hours to assemble an eight minute short film encompassing all these elements.
The Ghostlight 48 Hour Film Slam, operating on those simple rules, comes to El Paso on Friday July 16. Teams of film makers assemble at 6PM that day at the Percolator to start the process that ends 49 hours later at 7PM. All teams need to return their finished films to the Percolator by that time to be eligible to win one of the prizes. 1st Prize is $700, 2nd is $200 and 3rd is $100.
“We think El Paso has tons of [great storytellers]…, and we wanted to create an outlet for [them],” Ghostlight’s website says. All entries that make the deadline will be shown and the winners announced at the Percolator at 7PM the following Friday, July 23. The winners will be determined by the following formula: Artistic Merit (45%), Technical Merit (30%) and Adherence to the Assignment (25%).
“We hope that novice film makers participate, as well as filmmakers more practiced in their craft. We hope to inspire new filmmakers to share their ideas” Ghostlight says. Although not affiliated with the 48 Hour Film Project, the Project offers an example of what sort of craft is available in 48 hours. It might make one wonder if film really needs to take weeks and months to complete.
So if you want to make a film and concepts like comfort or sleep are alien to you anyway, then consider signing up and making a film this coming weekend; you can always sleep at work on Monday.
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