CMU students get creative for 48-hour film competition

That’s what four teams of students did over the weekend for the fourth annual 48-hour film competition hosted by the Central Michigan University chapter of the National Broadcasting Society.

The competition began at 6 p.m. Friday and ended at 6 p.m. Sunday and was open to all students for a $10 registration fee.

To keep participants from doing extensive preproduction the film competition committee released a list of elements each film must include.

The elements included:

Line - “I can’t help but feel you’re lying to me.”

Location - Stoop

Theme: - Good guys don’t always wear white hats

Prop - Cup of coffee

Scene - A showdown

“A lot of people come up with ideas ahead of time but we hope that by making an elements list that we will keep them from writing or filming anything before the competition starts,” Brooklyn junior and film competition chair Colin Hennessy said. “It helps to keep things in the 48-hour spirit and keeps people from cheating when faced with a challenge.”

The films are to be judged by executive producer of public broadcasting Kurt Wilson. The first place film will receive a $50 cash prize and second place will receive gift cards and other random prizes. The winners will be announced and the films will be showcased with a time to be announced November 30 in Moore 110.

“We like to have outside sources judge the films so that NBS members can participate and non-NBS members don’t think we are playing favorites toward any one team,” Hennessy said.

Saint Clair Shores graduate assistant Garrett Tanner was up for the challenge for the third straight year. This is a chronicling of the making of the short film “Revenge.”

Thursday 6:30 p.m.

Blanchard senior Mike Miserendino sits at the computer in his Jamestown apartment and begins the preproduction for their 7-minute film. As anyone working on a film knows, preproduction is the most important element to the success of a film. On the night before the competition starts, the co-director and producer starts character development.

“You can’t write a script until you have the elements, but there is a certain amount of planning you can do beforehand,” Tanner said. “It’s hard to go in completely blind so in the past what we’ve done is at the very least decide whether we want to do a horror movie or a comedy. If you have a genre than you can basically go where ever you want with it.”

8:00 p.m.

Miserendino writes the script for “Revenge,” a horrific tale of murder and revenge.

10:05 p.m.

The script is finished.

“We decided to do a horror movie, then we decided to do a revenge movie, and then we decided to combine them,” Miserendino said. “After talking with everyone I developed a character that I thought would fit the situation. I wanted a concise plot that would be both horrifying and that would support a revenge movie plot line. We started out with Garrett having this idea for the opening shot and we just kind of built it from that point.”

The basic plot is St. Charles junior Chad Weaver’s character witnesses Livonia junior Matt Reznik’s character murder Riverview junior Devin Jones’ character. Weaver then turns vigilante and murders Reznik in his apartment. When Reznik’s roommate, St. Clair Shores senior Sarah Kamlay’s character finds the body, a showdown ensues.

Friday 6:00 p.m.

Miserendino, Weaver, Reznik, Jones and Kamlay gather with Tanner around his computer in his apartment at Tallgrass and read the elements list.

“We had a rough idea before 6 of what we wanted to do,” Tanner said. “This isn’t the first time we’ve done this. A couple of the elements fit in with the idea we already had but then there was some other stuff where we had to tweak the story.”

7:55 p.m.

After a couple hours of reworking the script, the team was ready to film. They decided to film the most difficult scene of the film first. The scene is a continuous shot from outside of Reznik arriving at his apartment. The camera follows him from the parking lot, inside his apartment and to his desk in his bedroom. The scene features unique lighting techniques.

“Trying to get that from outside was our big thing” Tanner said. “It was difficult figuring out the lighting situation and camera composition.”

9:45 p.m.

After several takes, the team prepares to move to their second filming location on University Street between Michigan and Broadway Streets.

“With limited time you have to have limited locations,” Tanner said. “That makes the process a lot easier than trying to film a bunch of different places.”

10:13 p.m.

The team arrives on University Street and begins to do multiple takes at multiple angels of Reznik’s assault on Jones in an ally. The team uses Miserendino’s camera, tripod and stabilizer to catch the action.

“This is actually the first film I’ve acted in for the competition but it’s just a lot of fun” Resnik said. “The surprise with putting the required elements in and getting together with everyone is just a lot fun.”

11:00 p.m.

The team arrives back at Tanner’s apartment to film the final scenes in the film. They break for cheese, meat and crackers and then it is back to the grind of filming.

Even though they are filming a dark and serious movie, the atmosphere on set couldn’t be more to the contrary as the team constantly quotes movies and cracks jokes.

“These competitions are always a lot of fun and we always have a really good time doing it,” Kamlay said. “That’s why I always make sure I’m on a team. I’m the financial backer and I’m also an idea’s person. I like to throw in my two cents. I’m mostly just an actor because I’m the only girl they know.”

11:23 p.m.

The team begins to film Reznik being chocked from behind by Weaver. Weaver drags Reznik by the neck into the kitchen, which will be the final resting place for Reznik’s character.

11:54 p.m. While in the kitchen filming Tanner preheats the oven for the frozen pizza.

11:55 p.m.

Filming continues, the team is hungry.

Saturday 12:15 a.m.

The pizza is done. It’s time to eat.

2:45 a.m.

After multiple takes the last scene in the movie is done and the filming for the movie is complete. The team celebrates and moves on to post production with 39 hours and 15 minutes left in the competition. “The filming was surprisingly efficient,” Tanner said. “The ones we’ve done before it took a longer amount of time. It just kind of fell together. We usually run into some sort of little snags but this time nothing really happened.”

3:00 a.m.

Miserendino arrives back at his apartment and begins editing on Final Cut Pro. The night is young for Miserendino.

7:32 a.m.

The editing is compete. After staying up all night, it’s time for Miserendino to get some sleep. “I got home and got in the zone,” he said. “I was just excited and wanted to get it done.”

2:00 p.m.

The team meets back at Tanner’s apartment and after watching the edited scenes, begin post production which includes the voice over, music and sound effects.

The voice over is recorded by Weaver and the music is recorded by Tanner, using the various instruments that he had in his house.

“Since I am recording the music I can make it flow with the movie the way I want it too,” Tanner said. “It’s a lot easier than cutting up some audio and trying to make it fit.”

9:00 p.m.

The film is finished, 21 hours before the competition deadline.

“As far as the look of the movie and the sound of the movie I think it is easily our best yet,” Tanner said. “I think that this was one of the better experiences we had. There was no point where everyone got mad at each other. Everyone had a really fun time and we all knew what we were going for at the beginning.”

Tanner said his experience from past years has given him an edge in the competition.

“48 hours seems like a decent amount of time to shoot 7 minutes, it’s not,” he said. “We finished tonight and we are never usually that efficient and so I certainly say that past experience has prepared us for this one.”

Sunday 5:41

Tanner arrives outside the Moore Hall Kiva and submits his teams film after a long, tiring weekend.

“For me it’s just so much fun,” he said. “Even if we place dead last I don’t care, it’s just so much fun being able to go up and see what you can do against other people and see the creative process,” he said. “One of the cool things is seeing what the other teams are doing.”