48Hours

Hours of Madness

School Team Competition

TBD, Spring 2009

The ultimate school team filmmaking challenge...

Tired, spent and completely exhilirated is how student teams (35 this year) feel when, after "48 Hours of Madness", they gather to view their creations on the BIG screen and dine together on Sunday, March 9, 2008 (3pm-9pm) at MOCA La Jolla. Tickets are only $15 at the door.

GUIDELINES/RULES:

Who can participate: Open to any high school or college team - five students per team (from the same school) maximum. However, production crew, support staff, actors, etc. can be drafted from anywhere.

Limited # of Teams: Only 40 teams allowed in the competition - the first 40 to register.

Cost: $100 entry per team ... includes dinner for 5 team members + teacher, rental of theater, and awards for top entries given at the BestFest America Student Film Festival.

Help from Instructors: Teachers can assist in any way except in shooting, directing or editing.

Mandatory Team meeting: Sunday afternoon, March 2 at 3pm teams will meet at MOCA La Jolla to turn in their entry forms, receive instructions and go over guidelines.

Script released: At 2pm on Friday, March 7, teams are emailed the link to the identical 5-page script (in both RTF and Final Draft formats).

Deadline for entries + Screening: At 3pm on Sunday, March 9, teams turn in their entries at MOCA La Jolla's Sherwood Auditorium. If an entry is turned in after 3pm, for every 5 minutes (or portion thereof) late, one (1) point will be deducted from overall judges' scores.

Judging: During the screenings, a panel of judges (filmmakers) will score each entry on the following parameters: 40% on script interpretation, 25% on creative excellence, 25% on production excellence and 10% on overall impact.

Awards: Following a break after all screenings Sunday night, March 9, we will tally judges scores and awards will be presented to the top 3 college and top 3 high school teams and audience choice awards for both high school and college - with re-screening of top films.

Script Interpretation: Each team's challenge is to interpret the script (complete re-writes and dialog changes allowed - and encouraged) and use any genre in a <5 minute film, but they MUST still tell the same story.

Ratings: BestFest's High School rating guidelines apply to this competition.

Violence: No guns, knives, chain saws, other weapons, fighting or inflicted injury allowed. Additionally, no car chases or dangerous situations allowed.

Talent releases: teams are required to secure talent releases for all on-camera talent. Use this form Talent releases (in pdf) to complete this step.

Music: Teams must secure/have the rights to all music music rights used in their production.

Permits: Teams must secure a location permit/release.