72 Hour Film Festival
November 19, 2014
72 Hour Film Fest Annual poster for 2014.
What can you do in 72 hours? Make a movie. The annual 72 Fest just awarded its winners. This year had 41 entries: nineteen amateur teams, nine professional teams and thirteen student teams. The launch for the fest was held at Café 611 on October 2: teams made their movie from October 2nd-6th and held the screening for the movies at the Weinberg Center from October 10th-11. The 10th of October was the premiere of all the movies. From there, they selected the finalists to show their movies again the next day, making Saturday, October 11th the main event.
72 Fest is an annual time based film competition for teams nationwide. The goal is to make a movie in 72 hours based on the annual theme. The film festival was created in 2006 to inspire and challenge filmmakers to create a movie around one specific idea. Their mission is to provide an outlet for the creative community by hosting challenges in the fields of writing, filmmaking, stage, and other art forms. Caitlin Warsaw, an aspiring actress and make-up artist said that she joined the festival because it would be a “good experience to have for my future as an actress” and “also enjoyed the chance to be creative.”
This year’s theme was Hollywood Movie Mashups. Each team gets two Hollywood movies, picked at random and mashes them together into a short film. These can be any two movies, the possibilities are endless. Some of this year’s mashups were Terminator and Home Alone, Mission Impossible and Tommy Boy, The Fugitive and Grease, Scream and The Wizard of Oz, and the list goes on.
One of the finalists, Dallas White Films, got the two movies, For Your Eyes Only and There’s Something About Mary, titling the mashup film, Blinded by Love. Warsaw, one of the team members for Dallas White Films, said, “It was hard to mash the films because one is an action film and the other was a romantic comedy, but ultimately it was a fun challenge.” Warsaw says that, “The 72-hour time limit was a little stressful,” and she admits that it was the hardest part about the festival. Overall, Warsaw enjoyed the experience and said that her favorite memory from the fest was being at the premiere and hearing that their team had made the finals.
This year’s producers were Clark Kline, half of Fool Martyr Productions, Tim DeFoggi, Director of Information Technology at Sycamore.US, Mike Yamrus, an award winning Director, Editor and Videographer, and Nichole Vande Vere.
The awards were given this year to several teams in categories such as Screen Writing, Cinematography and Acting. The award for Screen Writing went to Crowded Elevator for their mashup of Silence of the Lambs and The Wedding Singer.
The award for Cinematography went to Laserstar for their mashup of Independence Day and You’ve Got Mail. Laserstar also won the Best of the Fest Award.
Missing Link won the Editing award for their mashup of Dances with Wolves and When Harry Met Sally.
Moonslaves’ character of “Crazy Dude” won the Acting award in their mashup of The Blair Witch Project and The Shining.
For the Music and Sound award, Haunted Sideshow won with their mashup of Star Wars-The Empire Strikes Back and Miracle on 34th Street (1947).
Black Lagoon did a mashup of Highlander and Harvey, winning the award for Best Student Film, Unimental won the Best Amateur Award for their mashup of E.T. and Blazing Saddles and Laserstar won again for Best Pro Award.
The Best of the Rest Award went to Visually Wired who did The Sixth Sense and Rear Window. Finally, the Audience Choice Award went to Pecos Bill and the Wranglers for their mashup of Braveheart and Meet the Parents.