There had to be some struggles when Hollywood made that cop-buddy flick 48 Hours with Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy back in the 1980s. However, the directors didn’t have to struggle to make a film in just 48 hours like some Okotoks filmmakers did earlier this month. Eleven teams participated in the second annual 48-Hour Challenge on May 18-20. “They can shoot on whatever they have available – iPhones, eight-millimetre whatever they want to shoot on,” said Katie Fournell, the director of the Okotoks Film Festival. At 6 p.m. on May 18, the teams were given a genre, a line of dialogue and a prop which had to be worked into their film. “They had to write a script, shoot a movie and edit a movie using those three elements and bring in their films back to us by 6 p.m. on Sunday (May 20),” Fournell said. “It’s a great way to get people to try shooting a movie.” Aidan MacIsaac, a Grade 11 student at Holy Trinity Academy, dropped off his team’s film about 35 minutes before the deadline. He has made some short advertising film for HTA in the past. He also participated in a film festival that didn’t go well – the inspiration for his 48 Hour challenge flick. “We lost to some pretty pretentious videos and me and my friends were pretty mad about that,” MacIsaac said. “So we did our best to make a spoof on art films.” The team used a bit of slapstick to spoof those art-house Fellini-type flicks. The team’s line they had to use – “Say ‘Hello’ to my little friend” from Pacino’s kind of pretentious performance in Scarface. (‘He’s kind of over-the-top,” MacIsaac said of Pacino’s role as Tony Montana, “But he was awesome.”) They had some struggles. “We had to work around some restrictions, but I think that is when my friends and I work the best,” MacIsaac. “It’s about five minutes and 30 seconds long and we used two digital cameras.” The trio of Shawna Koski, Taylor Wilson and Alyssa Koski got their animated film in with about 12 minutes to spare. Shawna went to school at the California Institute of Art, focusing on animation. “Animation takes a lot of time, so it was a lot of work over the last 48 hours,” Shawna said. The trio used stop-motion animation. Shawna described it as like the original King Kong starring Cardston’s Fay Wray. “We have like a little puppet and Shawna moves it incrementally,” Alyssa said. “Every time she makes a movement, Shawna takes a picture of it.” There were King-Kong sized challenges. “Our prop was bubbles and you can’t animate bubbles very well,” Shawna said. It turns out bubbles like to be filmed in real time – their floating motion isn’t ideal for that stop in stop-motion. “We spent a lot of time filming bubbles,” Alyssa said. The line it used was from Field of Dreams – “If you build it, he will come.” Building was a key part to the process, Shawna can’t start filming until all the props are built. Shawna said she was happy with the finished product. The 11 films will be shown on the final night of the Okotoks Film Fest on June 10 at 7 p.m. at the Okotoks Cinemas. Awards will include best film, best use of line, best use of prop, best use of genre and audience favourite. For more information about the Okotoks Film Festival go to okotoksfilmfestival.ca
