48 Hour Film Project prompts participants to make art in a jiffy

If someone points a camera in your face on the weekend of Aug. 7 and 8, don't be alarmed. It's not Bruno. It's not Borat. It's very likely one of the competitors of the 48 Hour Film Project. They'll be filming all over the area.

Talk about your quickie movie!

Some 24 teams of moviemakers will be taking their video cameras out that weekend to make a film in two days.

At stake is the Best of the City award, the winner of which will go on to compete in Las Vegas for big cash prizes and a screening at Cannes.

Contestants will convene at 7 p.m. Friday, Aug. 7, to draw from a hat to find which genre they must film. At 7 p.m. Sunday, they will submit their films, fully edited and ready. If they don't make the deadline: Too Bad. Oblivion! No Hollywood!

Precautions have been taken to prevent any of the filming crews from starting early. They won't know what type film they have to make until they draw. Among the genres are: buddy movie, detective movie, comedy, science fiction, suspense, mockumentary, horror, holiday movie, superhero movie, musical or Western.

OK. Let's say you draw, and you figure you just can't make a Western with no budget and with only two days of filming. You can, if you choose, give it up and draw a wild card. The wild cards are: silent movie, surprise ending, fable, family movie, foreign movie, ghost story, martial arts or stoner movie, tragedy or historical fiction or period movie. The buck stops there. You have to make a movie in the genre you choose.

That's not all the panic. All the movies must contain a certain line, which will not be announced until the starting time. For example, last year the line was "That's not the way I see it."

That's still not all. All the movies have to have a designated prop. Last year, the prop was a tray. Even more tricky, all movies must include a designated character. Last year, the character was a life guard. (This could have been interpreted as anyone who attempts to protect lives.)

Each movie must be no more than seven minutes long.

Soooooo, imagine. You could be assigned to make a Western that has a tray somewhere in it as well as a life guard, and someone has to say, "That's not the way I see it." Complete it in two days, and you're in the competition.

Actor Keith Flippen, who is co-chairing the local version of this national event with television producer Jeffrey Scot, said that places for several additional teams remain, and you can get entry instructions from the Web site www.48hourfilm.com/hamptonroads. The teams can include any number of people. Entry fee per team is $155.

So far, the average size of teams is six, but, in most cases, the actors haven't been chosen yet.

The finished films will be screened at the Naro Expanded Cinema in Norfolk on Aug. 12, with an awards ceremony on the following Saturday.

The 48 Hour Film Project claims to be the world's largest timed filmmaking competition. Who are we to argue? This year's competition will include nearly 80 films, including the first-ever local contests in Beijing, Lisbon and Prague. The group estimates that 35,000 people will compete.

Since filmmakers Mark Ruppert and Liz Langston started this in 2001 in Washington, D.C., about 130,000 people have shot 9,000 short films. (Check out the archive at www.48.tv.)

It's probably the trickiest, and most frantic, competition in all filmdom and puts the emphasis of filmmaking exactly where it needs to be - on "doing," not "talking."

Mal Vincent, (757) 446-2347, mal.vincent@pilotonline.com