80-Year-Old Man Has A Wild Weekend and Gets Little Sleep

Are 48 hours enough to make a film?

For the 11th year, my dad participated in the 48- Hour Film Project. It’s an international competition, although a lot of people get involved just for the fun of it. My dad competes in Des Moines, Iowa, and he’s led a team for the past seven years. Short films other than 48 Hours have also been written, directed, or acted in by my dad, so it’s no surprise he goes for something that’s not for the faint of heart. It’s challenging for a twenty-something-year-old to get through a whirlwind weekend with a narrow Sunday deadline and stiff competition, locally and internationally. Challenges abound; location, weather, your team, technical difficulties, and a hundred other things that can go wrong.

The Magic of Filmmaking

Film buff is the perfect description of my father. He cannot only answer trivia questions about movies during the past century but also understands the ins and outs of making them. Acting both on the live stage and in films over the past six decades has been his passion. He says it’s a lot different to make a movie than to watch one. He had various 8-millimeter cameras back in the 50s and used them to capture his friends’ antics. He dragged those video cameras around when I was young, and the staticky films of me growing up are now on DVD. Over the past several decades, he’s been more involved in screenwriting, direction, lights, selecting venues, putting together a film crew, and doing occasional cameos, a la Alfred Hitchcock.

Anticipation

48 Hours begins on Friday at 7 PM local time, each team draws the genre, and everyone is informed of the required line of dialogue, required character’s name and occupation, and prop to be used to qualify. A film must include all of these elements to be eligible for prizes.

Friday night, the part of your crew devoted to the screenwriting portion devotes their night to creating a story for the remainder of the team to act out, film, or edit. Teams may be anywhere from one person doing it all to an enormous group of over a hundred. Each person specializes in writing, acting, or is involved in costumes, set design, finding a venue or with sound, filming, direction, editing, and each minute detail of creating a movie. The film must be between 4 and 7 minutes long, and you can add a minute for credits. It must be turned into the venue location for each city by 7 PM Sunday local time.

Over the years, my father has had small teams and medium-sized ones. Some of his crew has included actors who’ve been in the business for years. Others are just trying it out. Some of his team return year after year and have saved the film with brilliant editing. Sometimes people get sick; some have passed away over the years or moved away.

Finished Product

My mom often caters for the weekend or brings food for the crew. A few times, the weather has been atrocious. Occasionally a promised venue falls through, and suddenly they’re left in a lurch. One year they put together a great film but had all kinds of technical issues at the end and traffic problems to boot, and just missed the cutoff for turning in the film by a hair. It was shown but was not eligible for voting purposes. His team has won various people’s choice awards over the years in multiple categories. After the showings, each team gets up for Q&A with the audience, and that’s also part of the fun. Every group reveals highlights of their adventures. The dates and times differ a bit around the globe for screenings. This year’s screenings in Des Moines will be August 8–10 at the State Historical Building Auditorium.

In the early years of doing 48 Hours, my dad was sure he wouldn’t ever go through the challenges, tribulations, and exhaustion of the 48-Hour Film Project again. Yet as each annual competition approaches, he gathers with a team ready to head into another long weekend of unknowns. Whenever he participates in the filming process, he seems far younger than his age, which is 80 this year. He’s giddy by screening time and finds it rewarding to see the final product in the end. It’s almost as if he gets to hit the rewind button.