The 48 Hour Film Project is a film festival/contest/experiment in which teams of local filmmakers are given a genre, a character, a line of dialogue, and a prop, and 2 days to make a short film. For the Atlanta group, 36 teams competed, 35 finished their films, and 24 finished on time. Pretty impressive. The deadline was last Sunday, and screenings are being held at the Landmark Midtown Art Cinema. The first two days have gone by, but the third day of screenings is this Thursday the 21st. I highly recommend trying to get tickets, if they haven’t sold out already.

The requirements for the Altanta teams were:
Character: R. Edelstein, Marriage Counselor
Prop: a 2×4 board
Line of Dialogue: “It was easier the old way.”

I know I couldn’t come up with a script that works all those elements into a horror film, a cop drama, a romance, or a musical in 48 hours, let alone produce an entire 7-minute film.

A friend of mine was a gaffer on one of the films and scored me and my wife tickets to Wednesday’s screening. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the shorts, whose production teams ranged from a group of teenagers working on their first project, to professional teams with professional crews.

The films were a lot of fun. Some were very polished, some were very rough. Most were hysterically tongue-in-cheek. There are some very creative filmmakers in this town. Given the requirements and the time limits, this was no easy feat. I can only imagine the panic on the faces of the team that drew the muscial genre. They pulled through with flying colors, though. My favorite on Wednesday was the romance, which will have my wife and I turning to each other and saying “you dirty whore” for months.

Congratulations to all who were involved. The Altanta film community should be very proud of their depth of talent and creative skills.