Teams choose a genre, a prop, a character name and a line of dialogue from a bag — then they get 48 hours to make a five-minute film that includes all the elements.

Chris Harrison and Elizabeth Stanton were representing one team out of 24 total at Magdalena's Teahouse, 2006 E. Michigan Ave. in Lansing, beginning on Friday night.

Magdalena's was packed, with a line of teams waiting to choose their fate stretching all the way to the door. The mood was tangible as anxious and excited teams speculated on their chances of success.

Film studies seniors Stanton and Harrison said they were feeling pretty good.

"Yeah, I'm confident now," Harrison said. "But in about 48 hours that might all change."

Stanton said the panic will come later.

"I don't think I'll feel nervous until we get our elements," she said. "Then I'll be like, 'What are we gonna do, how are we gonna do it?' — you know, it's the calm before the storm sort of thing."

Both team members were hoping to choose the genre film noir, but Harrison drew horror. The chosen character name was Virgil Smilovitz and the team had to include a bowl of oatmeal and the line, "My blood type is O-positive."

"This is like my worst category ever," Harrison said. "I've never done horror before, so it'll be interesting."

Shannon Burton, the program director, said films from the 48/5 Film Contest will be screened at the East Lansing Film Festival based on the judges' decisions and ELFF discretion. The films were evaluated by a five-judge panel made up of local filmmakers and ELFF selection committee members. First, second and third place winners will receive additional prizes. Winners will be announced to the public during the awards ceremony.

This is the first year the festival is holding a contest, but Burton said it plans to make it a staple of the festival. She said the festival is always trying to expand, and the contest is a good way to include additional filmmakers in the event. The turnout for the event exceeded original expectations, she said.

After gauging less than optimal sleeping time, the team members assembled at the Union around noon for a long day of filmmaking. Harrison brought most of the props. He had a bottle of Boone's Farm wine, black garbage bags and vegetable oil and red food coloring to make the blood. The budget for the film was $150.

English senior Jessica Dean, lead actress, brought the oatmeal.

Harrison said he had everything finished for the script and was in bed around 3:30 a.m., and got up at 9 a.m. to start nailing down filming locations and actors.

The film is about a girl who agrees to a date with a man (Virgil) she just met. He gets her drunk, not to take advantage of her, but to suck her blood. Turns out Virgil's really a vampire, and he's got her trapped in his house.

No one on the team had any experience working in the horror genre before, but everyone had been involved in other areas of filmmaking prior to the contest. That experience was going to pay off. The actors had to be ready to act immediately following their first read-through of the script, and the whole team had to turn a messy college house into a set.

Film studies senior Duane Baldwin and food industry management senior John Mele were in charge of the lighting. They taped garbage bags to the inside of the windows under the blinds, but that wasn't quite enough. Forced to improvise on a tight deadline, the crew dug through the garbage to find pizza and beer boxes to tape on the outside of the window. Finally, the desired effect was achieved.

The rest of the team cleaned up the kitchen. Stanton cooked the spaghetti the film characters would be eating during the dinner date scene they were about to shoot. Harrison sat down with Dean and Roger Wingfield, the other lead actor, to help them get into character.

In about 40 minutes, the team was ready to start shooting. Ben Logan, a telecommunication, information studies and media senior, provided the tripod and operated the camera while Harrison called the shots.

"I've never done film acting, so I don't know how it's relating to the camera," Wingfield, a 2005 theater graduate said. "I'm just trusting Chris."

Dean said she really didn't know how the acting was going and was hoping Harrison would tell her what to do.

"Chris called me at like 10:30 a.m. this morning, woke me up, and was like, 'Want to be the actress?' I said yes," she said.

By 3 p.m. the team was already a couple hours behind schedule. Stanton said they were doing pretty well regardless.

"We're a little behind, but we just had to set everything up and adjust the lighting, but that happens," she said. "I've never worked on a movie where everything goes on schedule. You just have to adjust to the situation."

As the day went on, the team continued to modify the original plan. Elements of the script were changed, and a lot of the acting had to be improvised.

The team finished shooting around 8 p.m. and began the editing process on Logan's laptop. Team members worked until 2 a.m. and went to bed with a nearly finished movie. The team decided to title its film "O+." The scenes were put together and the original score, written by Mele that night, was recorded.

Sunday morning the team was back at work on the second floor of the Communication Arts and Sciences Building. It was supposed to be an easy day of editing with only the finishing touches needing to be completed.

But Logan was having difficulties transferring the work they'd done the night before on his laptop to the lab's computers.

Tension was high, and Logan and Harrison ended up not being able to transfer the editing that was completed the previous night. They had to re-edit everything.

Despite the technical difficulties, the film was finished and delivered to Magdalena's before the 7 p.m. deadline. The team members said they were satisfied with the results.

Logan said the hardest part of filmmaking is actually getting the movie onto a tape.

"As long as it plays, I'll be happy," he said.

Stanton said she's going on blind faith and saying she's happy with the result.

With the final ceremony about to begin, all the teams were scrambling to find their seats. Harrison was about to get a beverage when he heard familiar opening music.

"That's ours! Oh my God, it's playing," he said.

The team sat back and watched "O+" as it became the first film to be screened at the first annual 48/5 Film Contest.