As the clock struck 6 p.m. Friday, a dozen teams spilled out of Beggar’s Banquet, 218 Abbot Road, and across East Lansing to begin working on a unique challenge — writing, shooting and editing a film in just 48 hours.
Friday marked the beginning of the East Lansing Film Festival’s 48/5 contest, a competition where teams are given two days to create a five-minute film from scratch. Each team randomly selects a genre and must follow a set of elements, such as a certain prop or line of dialogue.
The top three films will be screened during the East Lansing Film Festival in November.
East Lansing Film Festival director Susan Woods founded the festival in 1997 and has been running the contest for the past several years.
The contest is held in the fall, spring and summer of every year. Woods said there have been have been as many as 22 teams participating and as few as four, depending on the season.
Several teams consisted of MSU students, but other groups consisted of local residents and professional film companies. Woods said the contest has been a great preparation platform for groups who wish to pursue careers in film.
“We’ve had a team that has been in almost every year — they aren’t here this year — but they went on to the national 48/5 in Detroit, and they won best film and best direction,” she said. “They said it was directly due to the 48/5 here because we are so strict about elements and judging.”
Media arts and technology juniors Victor Lord and Jeff Grossman have participated in the past several 48/5 competitions in East Lansing and said they have developed a strategy for assembling quality films with limited time and resources.
After receiving their list of elements, they convened with the other team members to begin laying out the story line, writing the script and organizing their props and equipment.
Lord and Grossman’s group drew comedy as their genre, something Grossman said is more difficult than people realize.
“Some people don’t understand how difficult it is to write a comedy,” he said. “You can do a drama and make anything serious, but it’s tough to make something that everyone is going to laugh at.”
Lord and Grossman work with the same core group of people for each competition under the monicker of Vimana Films, an independent film house they founded with their friends to gain experience outside of the classroom.
“It does help to be friends because we can be honest with each other but not shoot each other down,” Lord said. “It’s good to not let our egos take over. We’re all friends, so it’s not like anyone is trying to impress anyone, and we have fun doing it.”
The final versions of the films were submitted at 6 p.m. Sunday and will be screened Monday night in 107 South Kedzie Hall.
The first place team wins $125, second place wins $75 and third place wins $50.
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