Since 2007, mass communication professor Anne Slatton has worked on the 48 Hour Film Project. The project is designed for a team to write, produce, film and edit a short film in the span of one weekend. This year, UNCA students, alumni and faculty gathered together to produce a seven-minute film for submission: “Code Chickadee (The Sensei Bob Story).”
Beginning in 2001, the 48 Hour Film Project has held local competitions all over the world. As films are submitted, they are shown and judged in hopes to win “Best of” and go further than their local city to compete with films from all over the world. There are also numerous awards such as “Best Actor,” “Best Use of Prop” and so on.
Team UNCA entered the Greensboro competition for 2025. As the kick-off began this year, each team was given a choice of two different genres that were randomly drawn.
Each team received the same prop, character and line of dialogue that was required to be used in their short film. The teams received a fan as their prop, Garrison (or Gerty) Grady the birdwatcher as their character and the line, “Do you really think that is going to help?” as their dialogue.
After everything was drawn at 7 p.m. July 11, the teams got to writing. Team UNCA wrote until about 12:30 in the morning to prepare for their shoot day. All day on July 12, the team filmed on UNCA’s campus as well as in the local area. The shoot was from 7 a.m. to about 5:30 p.m. to get everything accomplished.
Team UNCA was full of a wide variety of experience working on projects like this. Mass Communications student Kate Murphy was new to this type of project. “Usually when I do [film projects] I get at least a few weeks,” Murphy said.
For Murphy, the process was similar to a usual film project, just much more condensed. “It’s the same kind of process and we still take time to prepare and set up the same,” she said.
Having to work in such a short time frame, the filmmakers are learning to work on different skills. “I am a lot more comfortable using the equipment because I really had to get used to it quickly today,” Murphy said. “I’ve never had to move around with so many people before so that was definitely new.”
After editing from midday July 11 until the submission deadline on July 12, Team UNCA got their project in right on time. The seven minute short film premiered with the rest of the regional films on Sunday, July 20 in Greensboro.
After its premiere July 20, Team UNCA’s film “Code Chickadee (The Sensei Bob Story)” was selected to move on to the “Best of” category. All of the films that were selected were then shown on August 2 at an awards ceremony. Team UNCA won the “Best Graphics” award for its animation.
