48-Hour Script to Screen Contest, Sherman Arts Festival, September 2011

The 48-Hour S2S contest is judged by three area individuals who represent a wide range of experience in the arts and especially in film.  They do this work for the Sherman Arts Festival voluntarily, by the way, helping make the contest itself possible.

The films will be judged in categories, so that those teams consisting primarily of children will be judged separately from those whose members are older or experienced short film makers, etc.

We want to emphasize that the films should be family-friendly.  This means that you can certainly deal with serious themes and subjects, but that they should be suitable for showing to a broad audience which includes young people.

The required elements (a prop, a character, a line—all to be given out at Kick-Off) have to be in the film.  Without them, the film might be shown at the award ceremony, but it will not be eligible to win a prize.  Do these elements have to be central to the plot of your film?  The answer is:  no, not necessarily.  But there is more.  Any film is better if the parts and pieces stick together.  Hence, if the elements fit together seamlessly in your film then the film will necessarily be stronger than it would have been if the elements were just stuck in arbitrarily.  On the other hand, sometimes the use of the elements is so clever that it strengthens the film as a whole.  We will be asking the judges to keep in mind the extent to which the elements were used in a creative and coherent way (and we reserve the right to award a prize for that!).

Music is another issue of importance.  You should let the committee know at Turn-In if the film score or film music or soundtrack is original.  Many contestants write their own music and create their own sound effects.  You don't have to.  There are many places on the internet and elsewhere to find music that is legally useable (especially public domain recordings).   Same thing with sound effects.  BUT...  sometimes a team writes and records really effective music,  and such music can improve a whole film (careful:  sometimes it doesn't!).  If so, great.  AND... we reserve the right to give an award for the best original music!

This year, there will be several awards given in addition to best film in each category.  And all participants will be recognized.  It is an achievement just to make a movie in 48 hours. 

The S2S committee wishes you the best of luck!

For more info, go to http://www.48hourscript2screen.org/ or contact Hunt Tooley, 903-816-2359