Written by: Elan Waite

The world was created in seven days, but these films were created in two.

 The 48-Hour Film Competition had its public viewing of the contestants’ short films in Jerry and Kay Jennett Lecture Hall Sunday, and no one in attendance seemed to have any regrets.

Jennett was filled with an array of emotions as everyone watched the nine short films, most people in awe of what was created within the highly-restricted timeframe.

The 48-Hour Film Competition is a friendly event between students and advisors. The rules of the competition are simple enough: there are nine teams, and each team has 48 hours to come up with a complete short film that is four to seven minutes in length.

In the two-day timespan, contestants must write, shoot and edit their work and be able to produce a finished product. That task is amplified when the teams are given three wildcards that have to be incorporated into each film.

The wildcards include a prop, a character and a line of dialogue. This semester’s wildcards were especially bizarre. The prop was a plunger, the character was Mr. or Mrs. Party Pooper, and the line was, “You know donuts have holes for a reason.”

The winning film was “The Rap Game,” a film by the group @large. The film follows an older man throughout his day, showing him to be an odd combination of Italian mobster and rapper. Dr. Larry Etling played the main character, and the film proved to be wildly entertaining.

“Panic and then get busy and then panic some more,”  Talley Mulligan, assistant professor of mass media, said about the process behind making the winning short film. “It was what we can do to be fun and funny.”

Team Pawesome, an all-student group comprised of the winners of an earlier film competition, were newcomers to the 48-Hour Film Competition. The team was led by Janie Haskins, a senior mass media major.

Team Pawesome’s short film, “The Golden Arc,” was comedic and showed itself worthy of going against the more-seasoned competitors. 

“The big thing is to remember to keep calm because if you freak out all you end up doing is wasting time, and you don’t have time to waste,” Haskins said.

Last semester’s winner, Team Savoie, came to defend their title and presented their short film “Dennis,” starring Dr. Savoie’s son, Dennis.

“It was great,” Mike Savoie, interim dean of the VSU Honors College, said. “He actually worked with us last year. He really loves media and he loves movies.”

Team Savoie’s film last semester was more of a satire, but Savoie decided to tackle the more serious matter of bullying in “Dennis.”

“We wanted to do something that looked at students with special needs,” Savoie said. “Being in honors, I meet a lot of students like Dennis−high achievers, but socially awkward and have trouble making friends. I love my son and it’s connected me with the students that I have to work with.”

All the participants worked vigorously to produce their film in the limited time provided, making the event an energetic, high-intensity spectacle.