Now in its eleventh year, the Rialto Channel 48 Hour competition is bigger and better than ever. On May 24th, over 800 teams around the country were given a genre, a line of dialogue and 48 hours to complete a short film.
According to the international panel of judges, the results are impressive and competition founder Ant Timpson says judging this year is particularly close. “Right now it’s literally neck and neck. Out of 1000 voting points it’s down to two points between the top four”.
The Grand Final will be held on Tuesday 16th July at the glorious Civic Theatre in Auckland. All 14 finalists will be screening and the winners of 24 awards will be announced, including the prestigious Grand Prize.
Once the Grand Final is over, you will be able to view the winners on line at www.48hours.co.nz or on Rialto Channel during August.
Recently, I caught up with Ant Timpson to have a chat about limited time filmmaking.
Now in its eleventh year, the Rialto Channel 48 Hour competition is bigger and better than ever. On May 24th, over 800 teams around the country were given a genre, a line of dialogue and 48 hours to complete a short film.
According to the international panel of judges, the results are impressive and competition founder Ant Timpson says judging this year is particularly close. “Right now it’s literally neck and neck. Out of 1000 voting points it’s down to two points between the top four”.
The Grand Final will be held on Tuesday 16th July at the glorious Civic Theatre in Auckland. All 14 finalists will be screening and the winners of 24 awards will be announced, including the prestigious Grand Prize.
Once the Grand Final is over, you will be able to view the winners online at www.48hours.co.nz or on Rialto Channel during August.
Recently, I caught up with Ant Timpson to have a chat about limited time filmmaking.
Where did this idea come from 11 years ago?
AT: If I’m being honest, as I always am, it was stolen really. There were three international limited time filmmaking competitions and the very first year here it was part of a world wide one called 48 Hour Project. I had a disagreement with the people who were running that, I just felt it was a global competition but it was very small in every area it was in and I had major aspirations for how the comp could go. I was really limited by being involved with them, so I just broke out from that after the first year and we ran it as a solo event. I'd love to say I came up with the idea of limited time filmmaking but it’s been around for at least ten years before we started as well.
And what appealed to you about this competition?
AT: It was really done as a lark inside of the Incredibly Strange Film Festival. It was just another two screenings and I guess because I had a background of making weekend shorts with my brother, I kind of thought it would be like that. The appeal would be hanging out with your friends making something and then we’d all rush in on Sunday night and watch it, because I used to make them and show all the family on Sunday night. They were appalling but it was really fun hanging out with all your friends and I thought if you do that with enough people then the audience itself is self perpetuating in a way. Like everyone that gets involved will be the audience and then they bring all their friends. I just thought it had real potential to work within a niche, but surprisingly it was really popular and exploded.
Did you ever think that you’d get over 800 entries?
AT: No. We were blown away to get 40 the first year, and then you keep thinking it’s going to grow but it was the exponential growth that was really, really big. I keep saying it’s plateaued but it just keeps growing a little bit bigger each year. But some cities go down one year and another city will blow up, so you can’t really predict what it’s going to do. There will be certain things that happen in certain regions that you can’t account for, like whether it’s the V8s or Armageddon that happens in that same region that dominates. But in Auckland and Wellington it’s always been really vibrant.
Why do you think it’s grown, why it is so popular with people?
AT: Access to equipment and being able to end up with a pretty polished piece of work. There’s so many different types of people who do it - you’ve got school kids who are doing it, which are now probably the biggest group involved. Then you’ve got the professionals who are also cutting their teeth on corporate stuff all the time and this is a really fun way for them to cut loose and be really creative. And then you’ve got the friends who have got a team of mates who do it every year. They have no interest in filmmaking or having a career in the film industry and they’re like the teams who are about the spirit of the competition because they’re not wanting to be the next James Cameron, they’re just really wanting to make their friends laugh a lot. I think if you do that really well than that’s going to translate that joyous spirit of making something purely for entertainment purposes, because it’s a really populist festival. We don’t get a lot of experimental art films made, we’re starting to get a few more which is cool, but at the end of the day it’s about popcorn movies.
How much prep do people do before the movies – do they come up with story-lines before getting their genre?
AT: Yes, even though you’ve only got 1 in 800 chances of winning it seems people get really competitive and it’s very obvious when people pre-plan and pre-write scripts and then they try and shoot all the elements in the script. We can see those a mile away. I think what people do is, they don’t cheat, but they do prepare a lot better than they used to, and now people are asking 6 months out when the date is. Previously it was like we’d announce, and three weeks later the competition started. Now people have this huge lead in time, they book people, book crews and the actors. I’m amazed that the actors keep coming back and the crews keep coming back, they get paid normally and this whole thing is volunteer based. I hope there’s a good run-off so when those people do something they hire the same people they’ve used. That’s one of the points of the whole comp.
What do you think makes a good 48 Hour Short film?
AT: It’s just one of those impossible to answer questions. Keeping it really simple…you’ve only got less than seven minutes to tell a story so instead of being really complex and jabbing too much narrative in, because people tend to overwrite, it’s really just trying to tell a small story really well than a big story sloppily. Some people go, “how did that film get into the final?” and sometimes it’s just because its completely accessible to all the judges who are watching it, they absolutely understand what is happening in it and the machinations of the short. It’s not rocket science.
Are you saying there are a few films entered that don’t make much sense?
AT: I’d say there are quite a lot. I tell you what though, comparatively now to how it used to be it’s leagues different, I’d say in the early days, half the films I couldn’t watch. I mean I watched them but they were extraordinarily painful but now its rare to get a film which is literally unwatchable. I’d say there’s maybe two out of 800, and in the old days it was the majority.
Were there any dramas this year? Any broken bones or armed defenders call outs?
AT: No, [safety wise] everyone has knuckled down. We haven’t had cops or armed forces called out for years now. We hammer home all those safety things pretty much. I’m sure there’s accidents that happen but we don’t hear about them any more. I used to get phone calls and ever since I took my cellphone off the website I don’t actually know what goes down in the competition. We’re covered by insurance!
What are some of the best excuses you get from people coming in after deadline?
AT: I think because it’s such a legendary part of it everyone knows they can’t even connive their way in now after the finish line. We’ve been really mean to under 13 year-olds who have failed, so everyone knows it’s brutal and the whole competition relies on that, you have to make it 48 hours otherwise it’s kind of pointless... We’ve had people arrive on motorbikes and flying in – no horses yet. The finish is always exciting.
What’s the feedback like from the international judges?
AT: Absolutely impressed, I’m already getting bookings from festivals for them which is amazing. We’ve got really good judges, there’s some amazing people are on board and they judge comps, and there’s no difference in the standard of what we’ve submitted to the film festival comps around the world. So the guy who just did Tropfest, he said our grand final was better than the Tropfest selection, and those guys have eight months and huge budgets to work with. So fuck it, I think its brilliant. I think literally the quality of the 48 Film Comp here is putting out is better than anywhere in the world. And that’s a no–brainer – it’s top notch.
Don’t miss the Rialto Channel 48 Hour Grand Final screening on Rialto Channel 39 on Saturday July 27 at 7.55pm.