The Game Is Afoot

I know, perhaps it’s a little premature for me to start thinking about abother competition while Greenlight is still in full swing, but they’ve just announced the dates for the 48-Hour Film Project here in D.C.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Project (and haven’t heard me go on about it), here’s a quick rundown. Teams gather Friday night (May 7th) and draw a film genre out of a hat (a different drawing for each team) — horror, comedy, romance, western, etc. Then, the competition as a whole picks out some specific elements — for example, a prop, a character, and a line of dialogue. From that point, your team has 48 hours to make a short movie (between four and eight minutes in length). All creative work (well, with a few limited exceptions) must be completed within that period; the finished project is delivered Sunday evening (May 9th).

Monday evening (the 10th), the finished entries are screened, and afterward, the winner is announced (in the past, that screening has been at Visions Cinema, but this year it’ll be happening at the new AFI Silver Theatre). The competition takes place in cities around the world, and the winning pictures go on to compete with each other for Best of the 48-Hour Film Project.

We’ve got the entry form (PDF), and we’ll be sending it in before the end of the day — while there’s an April 9th deadline for entry, there are a limited number of slots available (and historically, it’s first-come, first-served). There will be a financial commitment, but the more people we have, the lower (per person) that will be (a non-refundable $25 per team for entry, and $100 per team for competition). I know a lot of you out there have expressed interest in joining in, so drop me a line (handy-dandy link over on the left there) and we’ll add you to the list!

Update: The entry forms have been sent off. Our team — hereby dubbed “Tohubohu” — is now in the actively-seeking-participants stage.