Editor’s Note: When available, links have been included to many shorts mentioned, however certain teams’ projects were very difficult to locate. You know who you are.
In each of its past six stops in Madison, the 48 Hour Film Festival has promised a medley of filmmaking teams, from couples simply looking to mix up a weekend to full-fledged Wisconsin-based production houses. In its seventh iteration, this year’s 48 Hour Film Festival was no exception, and its two separate screenings at Sundance last Thursday offered a variety of genre projects, all featuring the same three criteria: a kleptomaniac by the name of “Sinclair or Sylvia Vandermint”; a pillow; and the line “Forget everything I just said.”
Reducing a team’s entry to only their respective genre category can be a big creative limitation, but several teams mercifully added humor. Take the Spinning Gyre’s co-directors Amy Thorstensen and Sarah Hesch, who crafted the tongue-in-cheek sitcom pilot, “Making a Mint.” Featuring familiar faces in Tim Towne (as the kleptomaniac), local producer Chris Snapp, and Quantum of Vengeance’s Alissa Kulinski, Thorstensen and Hesch make use of “canned laughter” effects in addition to recreating the multi-camera setup of shows like Cheers or The Andy Griffith Show. With its bumbling faux theme song, “Making Mint” certainly feels like an over-the-top sendoff of bygone television comedies, adding another layer to its satire by casting actors as actors. In particular, Kulinski as Sissy Alexander (who plays the clueless “Barbara” on the show) nails an empty laugh as she files her nails, one that feels right on the money.
Nice Melons Films took their comedic elements into complete absurdity with their entry “Better Off Bread.” Two young men celebrate their three day anniversary with a romantic stroll through the park. That is, until things become fuzzy and the couple come to with a massive hangover from… bread? There’s more than a suggestion of a cottage cheese fetish, stupefying fits of exaggerated laughter and a general ridiculousness that co-directors Wil Loper and Dustee Hardy tap into. Showcasing their unique brand of humor, “Bread Off Bread” reaches what feels like the logically illogical conclusion, as the two leads are relentlessly pursued by a bespectacled, anthropomorphic… well, just see for yourself.
Surprising at least one audience member, Public Image Media delivered a bit of a left turn in their wedding buddy film “For Better Or For Worse.” Veering away from the expertly choreographed action sequences that made entries like “Bitch Slapped” so successful, co-directors Greg Kuper and Jarrod Crooks retain levity in their short where a wedding ring goes missing on the day of the ceremony. In addition to Crooks putting his comedic chops and rubbery facial expressions to good use, “For Better or For Worse” deserves credit for a tremendous supporting cast. Crooks’ bride-to-be Katrina Simyab is wonderfully catty, while Dale Mitchell as her pit-stained, walking sausage depository of a brother steals every scene he’s in with eye brow-raising incompetence. Mmmm, walking sausage depository.
Both Pelican Media and Drywater Productions nailed their more serious entries through a handful of excellent lead performances. Proving themselves anything but a one-hit wonder after last year’s winner “Tripping With the Planketts,” Drywater Productions tackled dramatic territory in “Take It From Me,” where actor Jeremy Heesen is slammed with a DUI and fired for drinking on the job, details all relayed through a very artful and economic introductory montage. Stuck working crummy shifts in between AA meetings, Jeremy meets kleptomaniac Sylvia Vadermint (Jessica Altman). Director Stephen Pickering gets funny moments out of his actors but Heesen and Altman’s strong turns also correctly frame the short’s depression and alcoholism within a serious context. Similarly, Pelican Media’s Rick Jacobs and cinematographer Brian Alberth incorporated a playful visual sense to serious family time in their crime caper “Birds of a Feather.” Uncle Jeff (Michael Brunlieb) and his dirtbag friend (Andrew Tisher) spend the afternoon with niece (Alaina Jacobs) inside a gorgeously photographed museum. Getting some serious mileage from telephoto lenses and superb interior lighting, the short also packs a cute and very human story inside of two low-level crooks nicking a museum’s safe. Like Drywater’s entry, it’s aided by several strong performances, namely from child actor Alaina Jacobs. At the same time, neither team was afraid of knowing when to dial down the adorability and dial up the drama in films about more than just a few character quirks. That ought to count for something.
Drawing the horror genre, director Ben Wydeven and local collective Project Famous really went out there with their entry “D.” Much like solid belly laughs, legitimately terrifying an audience can be such a subjective process, but Project Famous make ample use of their various talents, in including sound designer Josh Schmoock’s low drones and startling screams. Joey Broyles’ charismatic and sexually-charged ringleader, constantly “looking for the devil” lends the short a Red State kind of vibe. If nothing else, Wydeven and company deserve credit for some serious risk-taking in their use of blood and bare skin.
Groups Infinity Squared and HISENG COW both innovated their respective entries, despite their genres having virtually nothing in common. Infinity Squared’s dark comedy “Follow Your Heart” plays like a wry musical number, told through a continually singing narrator in Meghan Rose (of local band Little Red Wolf). A catchy unpacking of a sordid office romance, “Follow Your Heart” has a disjunctively happy tone and plays like a demented Mentos commercial, a claim that sounds eminently stupid without the ability to link to an online version. HISENG COW’s gangster flick “Foul Play” telegraphs its use of puns right in its title. Like Infinity Squared, the neo noir is told through voiceover from the perspective of a giant chicken. The absurdity of that premise is achieved without actually showing six minutes of a man in a chicken suit, as director Frances Auld shows every character from the knees down.
Made abundantly obvious from the above image however, my personal favorite was Firmament Films’ “The Noize (or How a Bunch of Stupid People Ruined My Day.” Using their genre of mistaken identity, directors T.C. DeWitt, Kris Schulz and Julia Smith give their short the sociopathic bent implied in the very title, with DeWitt’s slummy fake ID entrepreneur stopping at nothing to claim his $10,000 radio cash prize; seriously, he’ll stop at nothing. Not a breakup with his girlfriend, not a bitter neighbor, not even getting hit by a car can stop Oliver Cotton from claiming what will for the next 30 minutes be rightfully his. DeWitt, along with Chad Halvorsen (who also edits) and Candance Ostler as obnoxious DJs “Goose and WILDMAN,” are all hilarious. More impressive is that the short also pokes fun at the challenge of including a character named “Sinclair Vandermint” into any kind of story while proceeding to do just that in a terrific payoff. I mean honestly, is that even a real name?
And remember, there’s a good chance you can see many of these films in all their projected glory tonight at the 48 Hour “Best Of” Awards Ceremony at the High Noon Saloon at 5:30pm. Tickets are $5 and straight up cash only, G.
Brief notable mentions:
- Oven Mitt Production made great use of the pillow prop and featured a cameo from none other than Dave Cieslewicz in their entry, “Sleptomania.” Picture God Bless America with more goose down.
- Z Productions’s “Baggage” featured a naturalistic performance from Jedd Kistler, when a blind date turns into a pulpy onslaught of nameless attackers.
- “KL3P-2” from Seven Dutchmen turned “Sinclair Vandermint” into a robotics company’s recently escaped liability.
- Geoff Lafayette’s horror short “Sleep Tight” didn’t let its low production values get in the way of including a man-eating pillow in its climax.
- Madison Media Independent used high concept fantasy elements of soul-stealing and alternate planes of reality in “Balance,” where a woman is desperate to reclaim the souls of her family from Satan himself.
- “Klepto” featured a whole support group of kleptomaniacs bouncing around town. It also marks the first venture from local game studio Filament Games.
- A man looks outside his window and finds a kleptomaniac at the foot of his driveway, hellbent on “stealing” his gorgeous mansion. Maybe don’t worry about the feasibility of such a feat in Studio 88’s “Hinged.”
UPDATED: Your 2013 award winners are as follows
- Best Film: “The Noize” by Firmament Films
- Best Film [runner up]: “D” by Project Famous
- Audience Award Winner [Screening Group A]: “For Better or For Worse” by Public Image Media
- Audience Award Winner [Screening Group B]: “The Noize” by Firmament Films
- Best Use of Character: “For Better or For Worse” by Public Image Media
- Best Use of Prop [tie] “Sleptomania” by Oven Mitt Productions and “Nicked” by Grey Army
- Best Use of Line: “For Better or For Worse” by Public Image Media
- Best Use of Genre: “D” by Project Famous
- Best Costumes: “Better Off Bread” by Nice Melons Films
- Best Choreography: “Kleptos” by Filament Games
- Best Special Effects: “The Cure” by Ai Wisconsin Team 1
- Best Graphics: “The Noize” by Firmament Films
- Best Sound Design: “D” by Project Famous
- Best Musical Score: “Take It From Me” by Drywater Productions
- Best Cinematography: “The Noize” by Firmament Films
- Best Editing: “D” by Project Famous
- Best Actress: Rebecca Parmentier for “Balance” by Madison Media Independent
- Best Ensemble Acting: “The Noize” by Firmament Films
- Best Writing: “For Better or For Worse” by Public Image Media
- Best Directing: “The Noize” by Firmament Films