One of Us Films sponsors 48-Hour team

Posted by Lauren Thompson

Producer, Lauren Thompson

The 48 Hour Film Festival is an international film competition where teams compete to write, edit, score and submit a film in the given 48-hour time limit.  Each team of filmmakers blindly dive into this competition not knowing the assigned prop, line of dialogue, character or genre.  I knew this would be tough, but I was ready for the challenge.

Cast members from "Next Year Will be Different"

We finally scored a location a few days before the shoot, which really eliminated a lot of the pressure of working without a budget. The writing team had been discussing ideas for months prior to the competition, so we were hoping to pull a great genre from the hat!  The moment arrived…holiday film!  I was thankful to not have pulled musical or western!

Kate Mazzara, Writer; Mark Mazzara, Music; Lauren Thompson, Producer, Erin Thompson, Writer

Our volunteer production crew pre-lit the location and our art department (my specialty) got to work on decorating for our New Year’s Eve-themed script.  The place looked great and we were ready to shoot the next day.

We all pulled together as a team and made an awesome finished product. Although this project presented many challenges, it was a great learning experience for everyone involved.  We met a lot of great people and, to top it all off, we walked away with the award for Best Holiday Film!