48 hours. 30 teams. Three- to five-minute movies. Fierce competition.
The School of Media Arts and Studies will be hosting the 12th annual 48-Hour Shootout, a competition in which students aim to make a movie in a weekend to be judged and shown in a final showcase.
Frederick Lewis, associate professor and director of the event, started this competition at Ohio University with former Australian exchange student Kelly Glover.
“The reason I like the event is because it’s become a unifying event for the School of Media Arts and Studies,” Lewis said. “We don’t have many events that bring that many of our students together. It’s a great opportunity for (participants) to see how they can perform under stress … and it’s also a bonding event as well.”
The shootout begins Friday night, as each team meets to receive a genre, prop and one line of dialogue that must be incorporated into their projects. The students then have until 6 p.m. Sunday to complete their movies, which will be judged separately for underclassmen and upperclassmen.
Rob Kerr, a sophomore studying media arts and studies, is participating for his second year. After competing in a larger group of seven or eight students last year, he looks forward to working alongside two of his friends.
“Having done it last year, it was definitely a … hard thing to get through, but it’s something that at the same time is an incredibly enjoyable process,” Kerr said.
The competition can be high-stress, and requires a lot of work with little sleep.
“I think we’re all going to snap on each other, and it’ll just be kind of fun to look back on,” said Matt Serafini, a freshman studying video production. “So, the only thing I’m not looking forward to is not being able to sleep or shower, really, during the whole weekend.”
Abbie Doyle, a freshman studying media arts and studies, will be working on an eight-person team and said she is looking forward to the creative process of the event.
“(It’s) kind of like a slap in the face, but you’ll have a finished product at the end, which I think is cool,” she said. “Even if it’s not that good, you’ve worked hard for just 48 hours and created something at the end of it.”
Doyle said this aspect of collaboration and networking excites her about the seemingly stressful weekend to come.
“I really hope that it’s just making connections with other media students and being able to form a community of people that I can work with in the future, because collaboration is really big in … creative work,” Doyle said.
The weekend will conclude with a showing of all of the films and awarding of the top movies. Kerr said he encourages others, even if they did not participate, to come out and enjoy the final products.
“I’m really looking forward to … whenever everyone gets together in the theater and watches everyone else’s movies because it’s a lot of fun to just see,” Kerr said. “I get a lot of enjoyment out of watching what other people do.”
Lewis said for the past winners, creativity sets them apart. For Kerr, in his second year, his focus is to produce a video he is proud of presenting.
“I’d love to have a video that I’m just really proud of,” Kerr said. “I could really care less (about) what place we come in or anything like that. Now, if we came in first I would certainly be very thrilled, but just to have something I’m proud of is really big for me and to see what other people are proud of, I think is really cool, too.”
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