Photo: Mark Finkenstaedt
How did you get the idea for the 48 Hour Film Project?
Back in '98, I was reading an article about two women who were starting one of the first 24-hour play competitions, and I thought it would be really great in video. I knew immediately we would need more than 24 hours, so we came up with the concept of doing it in 48 hours. In May 2001, I spoke to some D.C. filmmaking friends of mine and they agreed to put teams together, and I put a team together, and we decided to try this thing.
Why 48 hours?
The very first year, we had no idea if it was possible to make a film in 48 hours, and even if you could make it in 48 hours, would anyone else stand to see it? We were pleasantly surprised by both: that it was doable, and that many of the films were quite good, or interesting, or had some redeeming value. What's great about that amount of time is that it's long enough to do something creative in a video without being too long that people over-think it. You don't have time to agonize over a script. You don't have time to shoot every shot from 10 different angles, because you just need to get the shot and move on to the next one, or you're going to be out of time.
Since the first festival in 2001, 70 cities worldwide have started hosting their own version. What's involved once you leave the D.C. borders?
All the teams adhere to the same rules, have the same genres … so that when we're choosing the best of the whole thing, we know that every filmmaker was undergoing the exact same constraints.
You went to Cannes this spring. Was your experience more Vinny Chase or Chevy Chase?
Nothing quite that elaborate. Cannes is a moving experience—it's completely overwhelming, there's so much going on, and it's completely exciting when you think that virtually every serious filmmaker in the world is there. That's kind of the mind-boggling aspect of it.
What's on the docket for this fall?
We're planning to do a Fall Shootout competition. All of the U.S. city winners will be invited to participate and basically make another 48 Hour Film. Each team will compete in their own city. We choose the top five city winners, and those teams will each be loaned an HD camera to make another film, and the winner will receive a Panasonic HD camera of their own.
Tell me about the international fall tour.
Many of our international cities' competitions occur in the fall. For example, it will be the fourth time we've done it in Paris. This year, we've gone from 5 or 6 international cities to 12 or more. We just signed on Barbados [in June].
Who has the toughest job on a 48-hour team?
I'd have to say the person coordinating everything. Sometimes it's one and the same person—the team leader, the producer, the director …
Any A-list interest in starring in the project?
We've had George Clooney's father in one of the Cincinnati films; we had Dennis Farina in an L.A. film; and we had Penn of Penn and Teller in one of the D.C. films.
If not for making a film, what's the best use of 48 hours?
I'm going to reference back: flying to Cannes and having a great meal in a café on the Riviera.
What's the most unexpected thing you've seen make the screen in the Project?
One of the much more surprising things we had the first year we were in Philadelphia was in a horror film…in the middle of a chase scene, this guy is being chased by the killer and all of a sudden he's running up the Rocky steps and he's completely naked. It was the most hilarious 3 seconds of film.
What are the biggest challenges being a filmmaker in a nontraditional studio city?
One challenge is overcoming the stigma of being thought of as a non-film city. Certainly we're not Hollywood, and we're not New York, but the differences between us and those traditional film cities get smaller every day. The capabilities of the people here in D.C., the facilities that are here in D.C., can rival those other cities.
What are your goals for the project as it reaches its second decade?
One of the goals is to create the first worldwide showdown. Another goal is to really try to harness all of this creativity that we've discovered and do some feature projects. One of the ideas we've talked about is a kind of Paris, Je T'aime scenario where specific assignments are given to a group of our best 10 or 12 teams and then they're knitted together in one film.
Visit www.48hourfilm.com/competitions/shootout to screen favorite films from the upcoming Fall Shootout.