“Alfred Eaker’s Fringe Cinema” is a column published on Thursdays covering truly independent cinema: the stuff that’s so far under the public radar it may as well be underground. The folks making these films may be starving artists today, but they may be recognized as geniuses tomorrow. We hope to look like geniuses ourselves by being the first to cover them.
July 31st -Aug 2nd, the 48 hr Film Festival came to Indianapolis, sponsored by the Big Car Art Gallery. Jim Walker of Big Car curated the event. 30 Indiana film making teams signed up to participate, including the Liberty or Death Team of James Mannan and Robin Panet.
Jim and Robin approached me about six weeks ago, inviting me to participate in this year’s 48 Hour Film Festival. Since I assisted in last year’s event with them to do Hallow’s Dance, I was a tad reluctant to do all this again. However, they shrewdly threw out a couple of temptations when they told me they wanted to do something surreal, which is my forte, along with inviting me to write and direct with Robin. Jim would be producing. If I recall correctly, my response was something akin to “Oh, alright, goddammit.”
For those who don’t know the set up of the festival, it goes like this: the teams go in on Friday night at 7:30 pm and draw a genre out of the hat. Jim drew Horror, which was apt as this is Jim and Robin’s forte. Then, everyone is given the same character name, his profession, a line of dialogue, and a prop.
The character name was Professor Sherman Kane, the prop was a ball and the line of dialogue was “I’m not talking to you”. Now the teams leave, write their script, shoot it, edit and turn it in by 7:30 pm on Sunday night. Showing of films: Wednesday and Thursday evening at the IMA.
I would imagine the whole idea for said festival came from Roger Corman. The story is well known among film aficionados. Corman had finished The Raven 48 hours ahead of schedule, with the actors, including Boris Karloff and Jack Nicholson, still on contract for the remainder of the shooting schedule. That night Corman went home, wrote a script called The Terror, came back the next day and shot it within the 48 period. The problem with this story is that The Terror is indeed a terror to Continue reading REFLECTIONS ON THE 48 HOUR FILM FESTIVAL & THE “9” DIARY.