Seattle Press on Line - Slightly Over 15 Minutes of Film Fame

News Bayou

Slightly Over 15 Minutes of Film Fame

By Krk Nordenstrom

Sep 17, 2004 -- On Friday, October 1, some local filmmakers will face a big challenge. The Seattlewood film teams must make a movie from scratch writing, shooting, editing and adding music all in one weekend. As part of the National Film Challenge, they are competing with teams all across the country to make the best short film.

"The National Film Challenge gets people from Miami to Seattle off the couch and behind the camera," says co-producer Liz Langston. "It's no-budget, grassroots filmmaking at its best" says co-producer Mark Ruppert.

The details of the competition:

On Friday, October 1, at 7 p.m. team leaders will receive an e-mail giving them a genre for the film they will create. Some genre examples are: comedy, romance, horror, fantasy, western or musical. The E-mail will also include a single character, prop and line of dialogue that each team must use somewhere in its film. Each time zone will receive different assignments. On Friday at 7, the assignments will also be posted on the website: www.filmchallenge.com.

From Friday until Monday teams disperse to write, shoot, edit and score music.

Films must be between four and eight minutes long and all team members must be volunteers.

Filmmakers will race to get their films mailed to the DC headquarters with a Monday, Oct. 4th postmark.

The best films from around the nation will be included on a nationally distributed DVD.

krk nordenstrom, producer of the Seattlewood teams says, "There is a huge amount of filmmaking talent in Seattle. After I put out the call to some friends to participate in this, the response was so overwhelming I had to put together two teams! Both teams are comprised of members, students and faculty from all the various filmmaking organizations in town; 911 Media, The Seattle Film Institute, Indie Club, Wiggly World, IFP, Seattle Central Community College and individuals simply interested in making films. We want to galvanize the filmmaking community in town by bringing as many people together from as many different backgrounds and experience levels as possible and hopefully show the competition's organizers just what our rainy little town is made of. We have many pounds of coffee at the ready and anxiously await our call to action on October 1st!"

Interested persons who would like to follow the team, please contact krk nordenstrom at 206-650-4404 or email krk@nimble-productions.com.

Team Seattlewood has also set up a blog at http://www.nimble-productions.com/filmblog to track their preparation efforts.

The National Film Challenge is a project of the 48 Hour Film Project. Their mission is to encourage independent filmmaking and promote creative communities. For more information about National Film Challenge readers may visit the website, www.FilmChallenge.com or E-mail Mark@48hourfilm.com.

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