The 48 Hour Film Project took place October 24th to 25th, but the winners have yet to be announced. April Salchert participated in the event and gave us a look at the international indie-film competition’s first year in Korea.

The independent movie god smiled kindly on South Korea this year, bringing the 48 Hour Film Project to Seoul for the first time in the event’s nine year history. Teams around South Korea banded together to attempt the near impossible: write, film, and edit a 7 minute short-film in a mere 48 hours. This venture required stamina, forethought, teamwork, energy, creativity, style, wit, and most importantly, a lot of caffeine. The event gave locals and expats alike the opportunity to put their cinematographic genius on the big screen and compete in an international contest where the prize is a spot at the Cannes Film Festival’s Short Film Corner in 2010.

Most heard about this opportunity by word of mouth, but the project itself has been running for years. The 48 Hour Film Project has been successfully drawing contestants from all over the world since 2001. Founded by Mark Ruppert and Liz Langston, the first round of films was produced in Washington D.C. and the concept’s popularity has grown into over 150 competitions worldwide since then. This year the local prize is a trophy and Movie Magic screenwriting software. The winners will then compete with the first place submissions from the project’s other international locations for the grand prize: a Panasonic HPX170 camera and $3000 in cash. The ten top films from the international round will then be screened at Cannes.

The project’s first ever competition in Korea is sponsored by Film Forum and Korea4Expats.com. There are fourteen local teams, which are made up of mostly expats along with a good dose of Korean talent. Some teams are more cinematically sophisticated than others, but whether a team used fancy rented cameras or simple hand-helds, everyone gets judged fairly.

The event kicked off Friday, October 23rd at 7:30 PM in Seoul, and teams had until 7:30 PM Sunday to hand in their finished project. On Friday, each team, only 48 hours prior to the deadline, drew a genre. This was the moment when teams finally discovered what kind of weekend they were destined to have. We wondered if it would be 48 hours of laughs, tears, silence, or murder. Would we be wearing cowboy hats, capes, or spacesuits? Would we be covered in blood or tinsel?

After drawing genres, three required elements were given to us – a character, a prop, and a line of dialogue – all of which teams had to include in their 7 minute film. This year the character was Jae Park, a real estate professional, the prop was eyeglasses, and the line of dialogue was, “I don’t believe you.” Additionally, because this was the first time the competition was held in Korea, each team was instructed to include a Korean landmark in the background at one point during the film. The landmark could be as simple as a bus station or as obvious as a palace.

There were a wide range of genres: buddy film, comedy, detective/cop, drama, fantasy, film de femme, holiday film, horror, mockumentary, musical, romance, sci-fi, superhero, and thriller/suspense. If you weren’t satisfied with what was drawn you were given a “wild card” option: fable, family film, foreign film (only available in the U.S.), ghost movie, historical fiction/period piece, martial arts, stoner film, silent film, surprise ending, and tragedy. The genres could be combined as well, for example, if a team drew “western” but really wanted “musical”, they were more than welcome to film a “western musical”. This gave teams more creative latitude and brainstorming produced different combos, such as “family horror film” and “stoner romance”.

Over a month ago, a small group of friends and I decided that we would sign up for this tall task. Obviously this was going to be a low-budget project with high hopes of  success. We did not enter the contest for the money or fame, but rather for the pure enjoyment and love of impromptu activities. So, when that Friday evening came around, we were excited to have gotten the “holiday” genre. We picked up our paperwork, grabbed our hand-held, rolled up our sleeves, and headed back to Bucheon laughing at the prospect of finding a Santa suit in South Korea in late October.

We spent Friday night putting together a plot line, creating characters, and brainstorming dialogue. We even found a way to avoid Christmas decorations and costumes. We ended the night late with a few (many) beers, congratulating  ourselves on putting together a simple yet witty film project. On Saturday, those congratulations were followed by grumpy faces and  tired eyes, as we quickly realized the long day of filming ahead of us. Despite our simple story, shooting was tedious and editing was even more frustrating. When compared to our competitors, some of whom had the grand prix of film equipment and software, we had something closer to a horse-drawn carriage.

By the close of natural light on Saturday, we were all worn out and cranky from being in the same small apartment for 9 hours. We wondered and hoped that our competitors were in the same condition. On Sunday, our director attempted to put the final touches on our film and add subtitles before the 7:30 PM  deadline. Unfortunately, he couldn’t add the subtitles in time, but managed to make the drop-off deadline in Sinchon without any other hiccups.

Overall, the experience was entertaining and exhausting, but completely worth it. Considering that most of our weekends are usually filled with soju and Cass inspired shenanigans, this was a much more rewarding and productive weekend. We may not win, but we did succeed in putting a short film together in 48 hours!

The winning films will be announced on November 14th 15th at Roofers in Itaewon at 5 PM 6 PM. Some of the winning shorts will be screened. Admission is free and everyone is welcome.

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