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Making a feature film normally takes months, years, a decade if you're James Cameron.
Forty-eight hours is all you get as a team for Portland's 11th Annual 48-Hour Film Project. This weekend, 43 groups of creatives will make a feature that could win a screening at PIFF.
Prompts with three required elements—a character, a prop and dialogue—will be handed out to the groups of iPhone amateurs and award-winning pros at Alberta Street's American Legion community hall tonight. But most teams have already been working.
We'll be following three groups on the WW blog.
Meet Man V. Film, Team Wolf, and Lovely Numb:
MAN VS. FILM
"This is an exercise in time management." —Team leader Erich Demerath.
At their third and final meeting at The Lucky Labrador, Man vs. Film leader Erich Demerath doles out responsibilities. The 48-Hour Film Festival veteran won "Best Picture" twice at the international Festival de Cannes for films he edited and this is his eighth time as writer, director, and executive producer of his own mob of mini-moviemakers. They're a mix of old hands and novices, some up from Hood River just for the weekend. As the evening winds down, Demerath reminds his team to get some sleep while they still can. JAY HORTON.
TEAM WOLF
"Weâre trying to build a few props, get karaoke practice inâjust in case we get musicalâand we are are very excited!â âDirector Erin Lyon
Team Wolf's members are straight out of the Portland pool of service-industry workers and art-school dropouts. The creative crew is led by Erin Lyon, who sourced from her coworkers, friends and anyone that would work for beer. They're a team that's ready for anything, including some song-and-dance numbers, she says. AMY WOLFE.
LOVELY NUMB
"Be prepared for some cultic ritual shit. Pre-production may involve a seance & voodoo curses on our competition."—Director Christoff Molesworth.
In 2004, Christoff Molesworth and his brother JR Molestworth started the dark humor production company Lovely Numb Films. When JR was sentenced to 6½ years in prison for an unarmed robbery, Christoff took over, using scripts his brother mailed him from jail. The creative arrangement worked well: Christoff's animated superhero shorts about Frogman (2012) were featured on OPB and the black-and-white More won the Best Use of Genre award at 2013's 48-Hour Film Festival. Now free, JR is busy meeting publishers for the pulp detective novels he wrote in jail, but the rest of Lovely Numb is ready for anything. ALLIE DONAHUE.
GO: Film submissions will screen at Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd., 7 pm Wednesday, Aug. 5 and 7 pm and 9:15 pm Thursday, Aug. 6. $9.
WWeek 2015