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SCC’s Second Annual 48-Hour Film Festival competition scheduled for September 12-14

The Somerset Community College Theatre Department’s immensely popular 48-Hour Film Festival will be held on the weekend of September 12-14. This is the second year for the event. The SCC Theatre Department invites both novice and professional filmmakers to engage in the art and craft of filmmaking in this exciting and challenging two-day event.

Film teams are given only two days to conceive, prepare, shoot and produce a short film (no longer than six minutes in length) and present it on SCC Stoner Little Theatre’s “big screen” along with short features from other filmmakers entered in the Festival.

The films and performances are adjudicated and the final evening culminates with an awards ceremony honoring “Technical Excellence,” “Special Achievement in Creativity,” and “Best Film.” Performance awards are also given for “Best Ensemble Performance,” “Best Featured Performance,” and “Best Supporting Performance.” A "People’s Choice Awards" will be given to those films that the audience votes as most effectively incorporating all the required contest elements.

On the first evening of the Festival, film teams attend an official “kick-off” meeting with the producer of the event. At this time, the special elements of the film projects are assigned. To assure that teams do not engage in significant filmmaking before the official 48 hours of the Festival begins, they will not learn of a number of elements that their film must contain until this meeting. Each team in the competition will draw a different film genre after which their project must be stylized.

Four additional elements (the same for all filmmakers) are also assigned at this initial meeting and must be incorporated into the film. Those are; a line of dialogue, a prop, a character and a costume element.

After the teams receive their assignments, they have 48 hours to complete their project, with all the assigned elements incorporated, and submit it to the producer of the Festival in DVD form.

Teams that have their films submitted, in proper form, by the deadline on Sunday night will have their projects screened before the festival audience and judged for the categories mentioned above.

Anyone interested in creating a film team for the Festival or individual artists who would like information about how to get included on a team can contact festival producer, Steve Cleberg, at 606 451-6760 or by email at Steve.Cleberg@kctcs.edu.

The 2007 SCC 48-Hour Film Festival winners are as follows:

A local team headed by local filmmaker, David Daring, drew the silent movie category and was the big winner of the evening, taking home three of the nine awards for their film entitled Fifteen Cents. The monster movie Shadow of Christmas, headed up by Jason Stogsdill’s team, and the fantasy film Opportunity, headed up by Matt Citak’s team, each received two awards. Zach Bales drew the spy thriller genre for his team’s film which was entitled Serial. A team from Louisville, headed by Brennan Callan, drew courtroom drama as their genre and entitled their film Somerset Up. Bales’ and Callan’s teams both received one award each.

There were three acting awards that included Best Ensemble Performance, Best Supporting Performance and Best Featured Performance. Keith Nixon with Callen Productions out of Louisville took home the Best Supporting Performance for his acting in the courtroom drama entry Somerset Up. The Best Ensemble Performance went to the cast of the silent film Fifteen Cents. The award for the best featured performance was awarded to Bobby Hicks for his performance in Shadow of Christmas.

There were three awards for Special Achievement in Creativity. Shadow of Christmas won for the best use of the pie as a film element and the inventive creation of the villain. The fantasy film, Opportunity, received recognition for creative location scouting and creativity in costuming. The silent film, Fifteen Cents received recognition for creativity in the use of the pipe cleaner element.

The three top prizes of the night were the People’s Choice Award, the award for Technical Excellence and the Best Film Award. The award for Technical Excellence went to Zach Bales’ team for excellence in set design, color, costumes and stunts in the spy thriller Serial. The People’s Choice Award was determined by audience ballot and was designed to go to the team that audience members felt most effectively incorporated all of the elements into their film. That award went to Matt Citak’s fantasy film Opportunity. The top prize of the night went to the silent film Fifteen Cents which took home the Best Film Award for overall quality.

Somerset Community College is a comprehensive two-year institution of higher education. SCC has campuses in Somerset and London, centers in Clinton, McCreary, Casey and Russell Counties. The website is www.somerset.kctcs.edu. Call for admission and registration information toll free at 1-877-629-9722.

KCTCS serves the Commonwealth through 16 community and technical college districts that form a seamless system of 62 campuses open or under construction. KCTCS colleges change lives by providing accessible and affordable education and training through academic and technical associate degrees; diploma and certificate programs in occupational fields; pre-baccalaureate education; adult, continuing and developmental education; customized training for business and industry; and distance learning. For more information, visit www.kctcs.edu.