Plenty of books and articles say that you have to be a little insane to be a filmmaker, and I’d suggest that you have to be really insane to be a filmmaker in the 48-Hour Film Project. Now in its seventh year, the Project is essentially a series of contests held throughout the year in different cities, where people try to make a watchable movie from first idea to final product in just two days.
I’ve known folks who’ve entered the event over the years: Friday afternoon before the contest starts, they’re a jumble of nerves, chomping at the bit to get started. At 7PM, they draw out of a hat the genre their movie has to be in, a line of dialogue that must appear in it and sometimes a prop as well (thus ensuring that no one gets a head start). A mere 48-hours later, they hand in a completed movie between 5-7 minutes long, and go to work on Monday with a glassy, exhausted look in their eye and absolutely no one home upstairs. While they always report that their movie is “totally freakin’ awesome, man,” one kinda doubts it—but nods one’s head supportively anyway.
Out of the many cities where the Project is held annually, Los Angeles surely must be the most competitive. Since thousands of under-employed actors and production personnel live there, you can find very qualified people for your cast and crew. Unfortunately, so can your competition, but everyone wins in a sense—if you’re an actor, people will see your work and if you’re a production person, you get to network with fellow pros. With all that talent on hand, expectations for flicks in the LA edition are high, and so are the production values, as evidenced by Brain Bucket Films‘ 2006 entry into the 48-Hour Film Project, 07.
A loving parody of Fox’s hit show, 24, the short takes a Zucker Brothers approach to the now familiar exploits of Kiefer Sutherland’s Jack Bauer. Populating the short are doppelgangers of most major characters from the last few years, including Chloe O’Brien, the generic Middle Eastern terrorist (Albert “Al” Qaeda), the late Tony Almeda (Soulpatch), the late President David Palmer, the late Michelle Dressler, and even the late Edgar Stiles (boy, for a show about time, everyone sure is late!). Everyone gets their brief moment to shine–or at least draw a laugh.
Nearly every inadvertent cliché from 24 is here, too, from “I’m running out of time” to Chloe’s ability to do anything with a computer, to the annual mole inside CTU, plus they point out a few I’ve never noticed before, like Jack’s omnipresent “Dammit!” The only hackneyed saw missing was “I’ll explain everything later, but right now, you have to trust me.” There were also no cougars chasing nubile teenage daughters either, but hey—that means there’s room for a sequel.
Much like the real show, the short cheats a bit with “real-time.” While the film they handed in for the Project was indeed a mere seven minutes, they went back afterwards, cut jokes that didn’t work, and added in material originally omitted for the running time, including “Jack Trackin’,” a full song-and-dance routine a lá Grease‘s “Greased Lightning” which now plays over the credits. The end result is a flick that’s more like 10 minutes, but having had the opportunity to screen both versions, the changes were well made.
That the film could be made in 48 hours is a big surprise. Add in that the 48 hours also included creating the show’s trademark opening titles, editing together all those multiple screens, building sets, and more, and it’s just shy of astounding. The story, by writer Benjamin Sztajnkrycer, producer Marc Ferrero and director Peter Sullivan, is unquestionably funny, with the best jokes are loaded up front, although to be fair, the build-up to the surprise ending is a little incoherent. Even so, the performances are all pitch-perfect, the cinematography matches the show with precision and the entire production captures that “big” 24 vibe, creating a sense of large scale even though the short was shot entirely within a one-block radius. Clearly, I’m not the only one who liked it; after all the teams in the 2006 48-Hour Film Project turned in their movies, 07 won the Audience Award, Best Editing (Sean Robert Olson), Best Special Effects (Patrick Tsao) and Best Graphics (Patrick Tsao, Jason Charnick).
Unfortunately for those now intrigued, the short is not available online in its entirety, but the “Jack Trackin’” song and dance number is available on the Brain Bucket Films website and at . As for how to get your grubby hands on a copy of the full 07, I’d tell you, but I’m running out of time. Dammit!
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