2014. Year 9. MOVIE MASHUPS.

Each team chose 2 random VHS copies and were tasked in “Mashing” the movies up into a new short film, ie “Rain Man meets Wizard of Oz.”

WATCH ALL THE 2014 ENTRIES:

Congratulations to all of the teams that were able to complete a film in 72 Hours.
Our Judge Panel awarded these films and finalists for excelling in each of their categories.

Screen Writing
* Crowded Elevator (Winner)
* Henlivison
* Unimental
* Visually Wired
* Laserstar

Cinematography
* Laserstar (Winner)
* Missing Link
* Moonslaves
* Pecos Bill
* Henlivision

Editing
* Missing Link (winner)
* Laserstar
* Moonslaves
* Crowded Elevator
* Henlivision

Acting
* Moonslaves (Crazy Dude) (Winner)
* Visually Wired (Lead female)
* Crowded Elevator (Wedding Singer)
* Pecos Bill (Lead male)
* Missing Link (Lead male)

Music & Sound
* Haunted Sideshow (Winner)
* Laserstar
* Henlivision
* Visually Wired

Best of the Fest
* Laserstar (Winner)
* Crowded Elevator
* Henlivision
* Missing Link
* Pecos Bill

Best Student
* Black Lagoon (Winner)
* Visually Wired

Best Amateur
* Unimental (Winner)
* Lounge Rat
* Tray Girls

Best Pro
* Laserstar (Winner)
* Crowded Elevator
* Henlivision
* Missing Link
* Pecos Bill

Best of the Rest
* Visually Wired

Audience Choice
* Pecos Bill and the Wranglers (Winner)

Thanks to our judge panel:

The Judges

Dr. Kelly Trigger, Chair of the 72 Film Fest Jury. Kelly has been a member of the 72 Film Fest jury since its inception and has chaired the panel for the past seven years. Interim AVP for Teaching and Learning and professor of English at Frederick Community College, Kelly has taught media studies, composition, popular culture and film as literature courses. Her doctoral research in American Studies focuses on media studies, youth, and digital culture.

Matt Edens From children’s animation to true-crime documentaries, Matt has written more than 100 hours of television programming for broadcast and cable. He’s currently the story editor for Snapped, a true-crime series that airs on the Oxygen Network.

Jack Gerbes Jack joined the Maryland Film Office in 1992, and was named Director in 2002. During his tenure, Jack has worked on over 125 feature films and television series, including House of Cards, VEEP, Ladder 49, Enemy of the State, Runaway Bride, Wedding Crashers, and 12 Monkeys. Jack has represented Maryland at the Sundance, Slamdance, Cannes, Los Angeles, London and AFI Film Festivals. He also was a jury member at the Krakkofil Film Festival in Bosnia.

Mark Ashley A freelance motion picture camera assistant since 1992, Mark was trained in Hollywood over the course of ten years. He has worked on multiple A-list television and big budget feature films, including six seasons of The X Files and Amistad, a best picture nominee in 1997. Having relocated to the greater Washington DC area in 2005 and now residing in Arlington, VA, Mark has mostly supported the camera departments on the acclaimed House of Cards (Netflix) and VEEP (HBO), both of which are filmed in Baltimore, MD. More information about Mark can be found on his website: acameramark.com.

Matt DaviesMatt Davies, MPSE is the Award Winning Lead Sound Designer and Foley Artist from Maryland audio post facility, Studio Unknown. He’s been a part of a diverse assortment of films and projects including work with ‘The Blair Witch Project’ director Eduardo Sanchez (Lovely Molly, VHS2 and Exists). In 2014 Matt completed Sound Design, FX and Foley for The Quest, a hybrid fantasy/reality primetime TV show from the minds of the Amazing Race and produced by Mark Ordesky, executive producer of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. You can find Matt building custom instruments, using imaginative Foley, contorting his voice for creature vocals and tweaking analog synthesizers to provide sound for projects he’s part of. Additionally, Matt is a professor at MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art) where he teaches Sound for the Animation Department.

Richard Jefferies Richard grew up in Frederick, Maryland where he graduated from Frederick High School in 1974. After 36 years of building a career in Hollywood, Richard returned to live in the Frederick area. During his time in Hollywood, Richard delivered 28 feature film writing assignments to major studios including Tron: Legacy, Cold Creek Manor (which he also executive produced) and Man of the House at Disney, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer at Fox, Searchers and The Bad Place at Warner Bros. Richard has done uncredited writing work on many movies including sci-fi features Virus, Species and lmposter. Richard wrote, directed and produced Organizm aka Living Hell, which premiered on Syfy Channel and wrote the cult horror classic Scarecrows. Richard joined Wiseacre Films in 2010, where he co-wrote and produced the Christmas comedy Elf-Man. He is currently executive producer on Wiseacre Films’ action adventure feature film China Bigfoot: Legend of the Yeren, which was shot in the remote mountains of central China.

Vin Grabill. Vin Grabill received his B.A. degree in Studio Art from Oberlin College in 1971 and a Master of Science in Visual Studies degree from the M.I.T. Center For Advanced Visual Studies in 1981. After teaching Video Art at the Massachusetts College of Art from 1984-1988, he joined the faculty of the UMBC Department of Visual Arts in 1988 where he continues to teach Video Art and chairs the department. Grabill has been creating and exhibiting works in video art formats since 1979. His single channel video work and installation work utilizing video have been exhibited nationally and internationally. In addition to individual projects, Grabill collaborates regularly with performing artists, choreographers, and poets in an attempt to find new solutions for the presentation of live arts utilizing live and recorded aspects of the video medium.

Jonathan Slade. Associate Professor of Communication & Cinema at McDaniel College in Westminster, Maryland, Jonathan specializes in micro-budget American independent film. He has a 25+ year relationship with Maryland Public Television where he wrote, directed, and produced 7 children’s programs (the Vid Kid series) and 7 documentaries, including Gone But Not Forgotten (1994), Gone But Not Forgotten 2 (1994), Clickety-Clack Christmas (1997), Eatin’ Crabs: Chesapeake Style (2008), Historic Barns of Maryland (2012), and Electric Road Trip (2014). Slade has authored several companion books for his public TV specials, including Barns of My Childhood: A Memoir (2012), and The Electric Road Trip Begins: All Charged Up and Ready To Go! (2014). A graduate of the USC’s School of Cinematic Arts in Los Angeles, he has also written and directed two micro-budget 16mm features — Forest for the Trees (1997) and Cinder (2015).

James Udden is Associate Professor of film studies at Gettysburg College, Pennsylvania. He has lived and researched in Taiwan resulting in his book, No Man an Island: The Cinema of Hou Hsiao-hsien (Hong Kong University Press, 2009), the first English-language book on the filmmaker in English. He has also published widely on Asian cinema in various journals and anthologies, including two in separate upcoming volumes on Chinese cinema to be published by BFI and Blackwell press. His current book project concerns how Iranian cinema managed to penetrate the international film festival circuit.

Rona Mensah. Rona, actor and radio host, is pleased to return for a 9th year as judge of the 72 Film Fest. Rona is an Ensemble Member of the Maryland Ensemble Theater since 1997, and sits on their Board of Directors. You can also catch her on Lite 97.5/WLTF. She looks forward to viewing the new films created during this year’s festival. Congratulations to all of the teams for their hard work during the festival.

Tim Martin. Tim is an award-winning filmmaker for Flying Dog Brewery and graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art.

PRODUCER’S NOTES:

Hollywood Mashups was on the slate for Year 8 but was pushed back to capitalize on the 8 looking like an infinity symbol and thus hinting at Science. For us, it’s always ’bout them clues and such. Goodloe Byron was contracted to design the poster artwork and after a few sketch ideas, we decided to do a 72 version of Jaws famous poster/cover, using photos of our hosts. Wonder Book provided the VHS, and the teams went to work. One of our favorite themes behind the scenes, with interesting results. Were some mashups easier than others because they practically wrote themselves? Or were some teams handicapped by getting an amazing mashup ie could they live up to the imagination of everyone?  All part of 72.

The CLUES for this year led to the mashup of Heat and When Harry Met Sally with Mikael Johnson and Doug Powell doing their best Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro impressions respectively. A large portion was scripted, structured around the famous Heat scene, and then once that was shot, the rest improvised.  The infamous “fake orgasm” scene was saved until the night of causing a bit of a stir.  Everything was shot in three hours on a closed night at Cafe Nola.

The OPENING was once again created by Joey McAdams by mashing up dozens of films that spoke the word “72”, with 2001’s HAL playing the biggest part.  The team behind 72 produced the short “THE PRODUCER” starring the hosts Mikael Johnson and Doug Powell and featuring “Serious Actor” Jeff Keilholtz as a crazy Producer looking for a script to adapt and star in. Normally everything is improvised with little planning on 72’s sketches, but due to the success of scripting the Heat/When Harry Met Sally mashup, a screenplay (with an actual plot!) was written for “The Producer”, but in true 72 fashion it was completely thrown out the night before. Due to scheduling issues the fully improvised 18 minute film was shot in only 5 hours, with about 3 of those being stunted “what if” brainstorms as we struggled to find the plot. The end result featured a riff on quite a few films including a few PT Anderson films (most notably Boogie Nights) and climaxed with the introduction of the trailer for “Drug Church“.  “The Producer” will make it’s online debut later in 2017. For now:

WATCH MIKAEL AND DOUG’s 2014 PROMOS
including Heat meets Harry Met Sally: