Sci-Fi London 48 Hour Film Challenge

May 3, 2016 6:24 AM

On Saturday morning you're given a title, a line of dialogue, and a description of a prop. Exactly 48 hours later, your team hands in a completed 5-minute science fiction film. The shortlisted 5-minute films to win this year's challenge have just been announced, and are free to watch here. Plus, in a new twist for this year, the shortlisted flash fiction (<1500 words) entries based on the same time limit and randomised prompts.

The standards of entries is always high but broad, from (semi-)professional outfits to complete beginners with a phone camera. Check out previous years' winning films, or go hunting for unacknowledged gems in collections of submitted films like this one.

Proper vimeo links to this year's shortlisted films, in case Sci-fi-London's fancy gallery thing breaks or goes away:
Harbour (by Augmented Reality)
Brand New (by Film Unit)
Absence Felt (by Team Conflix)
No Guarantee (by RainMakers)
Shutdown (by Newt & Jones)
Rescue Plan (by Rocket Locket)
Sunspring (by 32 Tesla K80 GPUs)
The Number 7 (by Tinted Lens)
The Parliament House (by Get to the Choppah!)
Weak Execution (by Knightstone Productions)

posted by metaBugs (6 comments total)

This competition was good for special-effects-guy-turned-director Gareth Edwards. The buzz he got from his 2008 entry got him enough attention to be able to fund his first feature, "Monsters", which led to him being given the director's chair for the latest (2014) Godzilla film.
posted by seasparrow at 8:43 AM on May 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

I was an editor on a film in a competition like that last year (not scifi themed though), it's was gruesome work, I edited from 6pm to 10 am, the rest of the post work (color grading, sound editiing and mixing and so on) went on until 6pm and we didn't have any special effects to worry about. I can't imagine how they pull that stuff off.
posted by SageLeVoid at 1:52 PM on May 3, 2016

I could not easily find on the first link what the title/dialogue/prop were. Was it obvious and I'm just blind?
posted by Metro Gnome at 3:24 PM on May 3, 2016

The standards of entries is always high..

I can assure this isn't true, because I entered 5 - 10 years back and our entry was TERRRRRRIBLE.
We had a total crew of 3.5 people, none of whom knew what was going on.
Our story made no sense, the directing was terrible, the acting was worse.

But we finished. We made a 5 minute film in the time allowed, which is winning enough in my book.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 3:24 PM on May 3, 2016

I believe the title, dialogue and prop are different for each film.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 3:26 PM on May 3, 2016

I believe the title, dialogue and prop are different for each film.

Yes, that's correct. I think in previous years they required each team's criteria to pop up on a title card at the start, but looks like they abandoned that. But searching Vimeo for the film titles should find you the original upload by each team, and they usually put the criteria in the description. Faffy, but should get you there. (I'd do it myself but it's already 01:28 here and I need sleep...)

...which is winning enough in my book.
Damn right. Tough conditions, brutal time pressure, and you managed to make a thing. Definitely a win.
posted by metaBugs at 5:30 PM on May 3, 2016