Published: July 24, 2007 11:27 am            

The fast picture show: 48 Hour Film Project tests amateur directors’ skills

Hank Rothrock knelt down next to a small tripod, looked carefully through the lens of the small, hand-held video camera then stood up, took a few small steps backwards in the Jeffersonville alleyway and crossed his arms across his broad chest.

“Action!” the 24-year-old IU Southeast student said.

The man in front of the camera leaped into action, bent down to the ground, picked up a handful of black rocks from a deep pothole then watched, seemingly perplexed, as he slowly let them fall between his fingers back to the ground below.

“Cut!” Rothrock said. “OK, let’s do it again.”

In these moments, Rothrock was experiencing his first taste of being a movie director. He and his team of six — who dubbed themselves Yellow Umbilical Cord — entered Louisville’s second annual 48 Hour Film Project in anticipation of a great challenge.

Each of the 48 entering teams — two of which were led by Southern Indiana residents — gathered in Louisville Friday evening where they were given specific guidelines for their film. Teams receive a specific genre along with a prop, line of dialogue and character which must be used in their movie. The films can’t be any more than seven minutes or less than four minutes in length. Teams have only 48 hours to complete and edit the films.

Filmmakers can make few plans for their movie until they receive these guidelines, but on Friday, Rothrock, as did the rest of the filmmakers, finally had many questions answered. Rothrock’s genre is science fiction, his prop: ice cream. The team’s common line of dialogue is, “See, that’s what you get,” and the common character is a fashion designer. All of theses pleased Rothrock.

“I had a basic idea in mind,” Rothrock said from an alley near Schimpff’s Confectionary in Jeffersonville, were he filmed a few scenes Saturday afternoon. “(The guidelines) totally fit.”

The idea for the 48 Hour Film Project originated in May 2001 with Mark Ruppert of Washington, D.C. He enlisted his filmmaking partner, Liz Langston, and several other D.C. filmmakers to form their own teams and join him in discovering whether films made in just 48 hours would even be worth watching, according to the organization’s Web site.

Today, more than 100 competitions have taken place in cities around the world, including Atlanta, Los Angeles, New York, Austin, Texas, and Louisville.

Rothrock said he heard about the project two months ago through a television ad and quickly called to pay the registration fee.

“I used that $125 as motivation to build a team,” Rothrock said. “But a lot of the people I got during the last week.”

Rothrock’s movie tells the story of a man who inexplicably finds black jelly beans over the course of his day. In the end, he realizes the black jelly beans are symbolic of a dark change in his life.

“I had the idea, not necessarily the full idea at all, but the idea that I wanted to use this guy as a symbol of how to avoid dealing with their problems all the time,” Rothrock said Monday after finishing the movie and getting some much needed sleep. “It came together really well, especially for our first time. The biggest pain was editing. We probably did too many takes, but I think we needed to. It was usually the third shot that was the best.”

Rothrock and his team used only a small video camera and a tripod, where other teams working with larger budgets often use special lighting and computer editing programs. He believes, however, that those who see the film will be surprised at its quality despite its low budget.

“My biggest fear is that other people won’t get it,” Rothrock said of the theme of his movie. “I didn’t want to spell it out, but I tried to make it as obvious as possible.”

Rothrock’s lead actor, 30-year-old Wes Higdon of Louisville, complimented Rothrock on his first-time directing skills.

“His direction has been very professional,” Higdon said during filming Saturday afternoon. “He’s always on task. Not once has he seemed distracted, but at the same time, he’s still just hanging with us.”

Higdon — who has mainly done theater acting — said he answered an ad Rothrock placed for an actor because he was intrigued about making a film in 48 hours.

“When you’re making a film in 48 hours, you don’t have a lot of time to focus on the details,” he said. “You have to be in the moment and just do it.”

Rothrock also gushed over Higdon’s performance in his film.

“Wes, he really went for it,” Rothrock said. “There’s just a lot of emotion, not a lot of dialogue. It was a little bit of an embarrassment for him to just put himself out there, but he always got it. He was really great for doing that.”

The winner of Louisville’s 48 Hour Film Project wins $500 and advances to a national competition, where a panel of judges selects the country’s 10 best films. Other local prizes include those for best editing, best directing, best writing and best acting, said Sheila Berman, the Louisville producer for the 48 Hour Film Project.

When asked whether or not he would want to try the 48 Hour Film Project again next year, Rothrock answered, “Oh, definitely.”

”I was already trying to talk all the guys I had this year into doing it again. I’d like to try to keep this team together.”

        

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