2008 Weekend Film Challenge Wrinkle 1 & 2

Hello everyone. My name is Joe Sexton and this year I have been given the task of organizing the Weekend Film Challenge. I have been corresponding with many of you via email, but I wanted to post a blog so everybody would have a place to get the latest updates and information. I would like to thank all the teams that have signed up this year and encourage anyone who hasn’t done so to contact me about signing up. As many of you know, we have made a few changes this year.

The first change is that we are not going to have just one weekend to make our films. This year we will hold a genre draft on Monday, May, 5th to determine the sort of film each team–will make. Teams will draft in the order that they sign up, so if you are on the fence it is to your advantage to sign up sooner.  Each team will have that week to plan its production. We ask that principle photography take place the weekend of the 9th through the 11th. Each team will then have a week for postproduction, reshoots, etc. The final cut of the film is due on Monday the 19th.

Another change to the challenge this year is the introduction of wrinkles. The wrinkles are replacing the traditional character, prop, and line of dialogue requirements of years past. We have already announced the first two wrinkles with the third and final wrinkle coming at the end of this month. Wrinkle number one requires each team to lend an actor from its production to the team which follows it. The team order is determined by the order in which teams signed up for the challenge. The second wrinkle is much like the first only instead of an actor, each team will also pass along a location from its production. For example, team one may end its film with a character running wildly across a grocery store parking lot. Team two then will have to incorporate the character running wildly as well as the parking lot in to its film. The experiement will be to link all the movies together and have them play as one continuous movie. How will this look when it's finished?  Hopefully cool, but who knows?  It's Experiemental.  I also hope that by promoting greater cooperation among teams and allowing more time to produce a film, we will be able to make a product that everyone can be proud of. I am personally looking forward to the challenge this year as I feel that the past couple of years teams have really raised the bar and this year the trend will continue. I think that with a bit of cooperation and some good teams we will make this year’s challenge the best one yet. Anybody who has any questions or input regarding this year’s challenge should contact me via email. I will be updating information and sending emails as new announcements are made. Stay tuned for an announcement about Wrinkle #3!  I’m looking forward to working with everyone to make this year’s challenge the best yet. Joe Sexton