Amara Shelton (9) left, Luella McNichols (10) right, filming their project “I Scream for Ice Cream.” (Courtesy of BHS video Production)

The first ever school-wide 48-hour film competition took place November 3-5. Participants in teams of four were given the time to make an entire film between one and three minutes in 48 hours including the line, prop and theme that are given at the kickoff of this event.
The competition required teams to thoroughly plan, film and edit their movie while fighting the clock. It teaches lessons in efficiency, teamwork and creativity and the results of this hard work were worth it. The event was planned and carried out by the BHS student-composed film club, and there are even bigger things coming.
Meilee Riddle, vice president of film club (sponsored by Steven Bradford), played a key role in the organization of the November event along with other club members.
This included creating the registration process, finding judges, advertising, assigning guidelines, themes and teams, and finally, organizing and planning the final screening and award ceremony.
The event also had a required theme (horror), line of dialogue (“I knew I didn’t have time for this”) and a required prop (a spoon). Everything else was entirely up to the competitors.
Riddle said that participating in a 48-hour film festival herself, hosted by National Film Festival for Talented Youth (NFFTY) in early 2022, gave film club the idea to bring the concept to BHS.
“In those 48 hours I built really strong connections with my teammates, I created a product I was proud of and I had a really great time,” Riddle said.
She believes there are even more benefits to bringing this competition to BHS.
“It’s a great opportunity to meet new people, you gain the skills to be able to work under pressure and work with people,” Riddle said.
The results of the November event were extremely positive.
“It went a lot better than I expected,” Riddle said. “We were very successful and all the teams had a really great time.”
According to Riddle, the competition not only works to bring those in the film program closer together between skill levels, enabling the opportunity to make valuable connections and learn from others, but it can also work to bring people into the film program who are interested.
“I am hoping that this is a tradition that will go on for future years at Ballard High School and district wide,” Riddle said.
Forty eight hours might seem like a lot of time to be invested in something, but Riddle says “It’s definitely worth the time commitment.” She is thankful to everyone who participated and all the creativity that was shown.
“It was so fun to see what all the other teams came up with,” said Luella McNichols, a sophomore in the advanced film class.
Although there was very little advertising leading up to the November film competition, This was purposeful; the competition was meant to act as a “trial run” for the upcoming 48-hour film festival, which is set to take place in February. This time, though, the competition will be district-wide
“We do not connect with the other schools’ film programs enough and they’re all so great!” Riddle said. “It would be really awesome to have more opportunities to collaborate and meet these new people.”
The future competition is set to take place on the weekend of February 2-4, and the screening will take place February 10 in the BHS PAC. Volunteers are needed.