Location New Zealand Hosted by Ant Timpson | Founded 2004 | |
Website | ||
48Hours is a New Zealand film-making competition. It involves teams of various sizes competing to write, shoot, edit and score a short film, which must be between 1 and 7 minutes long (5 minutes in 2016), over a single 48-hour period. Developed from the US-based 48 Hour Film Project, which was run in Auckland in 2003, 48Hours has been running as a New Zealand-only event since 2004. with regional competitions organised in 8 cities around New Zealand: Auckland, Hamilton, Gisborne, Rotorua, Taranaki, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin.
Contents
The event is organised by Anthony "Ant" Timpson. Teams attend a launch ceremony on a Friday night where each team is given a randomly selected genre within which to base their film's theme. They are also given three compulsory features which are common to all teams. These are a line of dialogue, a prop, a character, and since 2010, a "technical" element.
All creative work required to produce the film must be undertaken and completed within the 48 hours of the competition. This includes storylining, scriptwriting, filming, editing and audio mixing. Teams must deliver their finished film to the competition organisers by the Sunday evening to be eligible for prizes, although late deliveries will still be screened in the heats.
By 2011 the competition had grown to include more than 800 teams nationwide with at least 10,000 people believed to be involved.
Compulsory elements
Every year teams are given a number of compulsory elements to help ensure that film has been wholly created on the shoot weekend. The elements include a character with a gender-neutral name, a character trait, a line of dialogue, a prop, and as of 2010, a technical shot. As well as these, teams are randomly allocated a genre for their film.
Regional and national winners
After initially being held in Auckland in 2003 as part of the international 48 Hour Film Project, the independent 48Hours began in 2004 with teams in Auckland and Wellington. At its peak in 2011, it was represented in eight cities.