On the afternoon of July 31st I ventured down to the Fountain Square District to give a bit of praise to an area I don't usually make it out to for this column. Making an effort to view the latest contemporary art on view in our city, I headed to the G.C. Murphy building where the current home of Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art (IMOCA) can be found at 1043 Virginia Avenue. As I walked up to the building and discovered that even though the sign on the door stated that IMOCA was open, I found the doors locked. My reasoning for this would be that a new show is currently being installed. Unlucky for me I don't pay any attention to TWITTER and rarely do I log onto Facebook. Otherwise I may have seen their post that they closed their doors this week as they prepare for PostSecret, the newest show to open on First Friday. But luck would have it, as I walked back out to the curb, the door to the Red Lion Grog House opened and we were kindly invited inside where Ejected Productions was working on The Indianapolis 48 Hour Film Project. I decided to enter the Ole' English Pub being just a bit curious about what was taking place just inside. I have heard about The 48 Hour Film Project going on around the country for over nine years. Getting a chance to see the action up close was very exciting. Taking a seat inside the Grog House, another first for me, and ordering what turned out to be one of the most expensive orders of french fries I have ever paid for, but one of the City's best tastes, minus the curry sauce that accompanied the fries, I sat back and watched the production unfold. Sitting inside one of Indiana's first historic commercial districts and watching one of The 48 Hour Film productions take form made me appreciate even more the opportunities this city has to offer. Many do not see Indianapolis as a "Film" city, but after seeing this production take shape I believed there is a place for Indy Film Makers in Hollywood.

Wondering what on earth The 48 Hour Film Project is? Let's see if I can shine some light on the history of the project. Mark Ruppert came up with this idea in 2001, wanting to see not only if could a film be created in 48 hours, but would it be worth watching? Over nine years later the project has exploded with more than 150 competitions having taken place around the world. My guess is he got his answer. The smallest teams have consisted of a single person to some of the more larger teams that have had over a hundred people. So why do this? The Film Project set out with a mission to not only challenge the Film Makers of our time but to promote them on a local and national level. How does it work? The 48 Hour Film Project is a crazy, sleepless weekend in which the team not only makes a movie, but they write, shoot, edit and score it before the pending deadline. On Friday (here in Indy 7.30.10) the team receives four elements that they must include into the film. The elements this year for the team we followed on Saturday (7.31.10) was a genre (buddy film), a character (Cooper O'Brien a dog walker), a prop (auto part), and a line of dialogue ("What time is it?"). All of the Indianapolis teams had these same elements to work into their films. Now 48 hours seems like an impossible lenght of time to pull off a decent film, but add to the challenge each team has to keep the length of the production between 4-7 minutes. So the Sunday evening deadline of 7pm makes that clock tick a little louder with each movement.

Michael Bricker, Robert Scheer and Christopher Nunn came together and created Ejected Productions for this film competition. On Wednesday, July 28, they did a crew and casting call so they would have some of their people in place prior to the 48-hour madness of creating the short film. Since they were not entirely sure what they were looking for in a cast member they left it rather open and then did call backs on Friday once they knew what they needed. Praise goes to the cast and crew. Since this is a competition in which no one gets paid, every one was volunteering their time for the weekend shoot. (www.ejectedproductions.com)

The winning film will compete with other 48 Hour Film Project films from around the world. The winner from each city will receive a trophy and will be screened at Filmapalooza. The over-all International Grand Prize is $3,000 along with a screening at the Cannes Film Festival.

Interested to see what Indianapolis Film Makers can do? A premiere screening of the films will be held on Saturday, August 7, at 5, 7, and 9pm at the Indianapolis Museum of Art (4000 N. Michigan Road). Tickets are $10 for each screening and are available through the IMA (in advance online or in person at the IMA). With more then thirty teams in the Indianapolis area, the competition will be strong and certainly worth a Saturday evening out. Ejected Production's working title Cool Beans can be seen at the Toby Theater inside the IMA during the 9pm viewing. Oh. and if you do make it out, you get to vote for your favorite. For more information about The 48 Hour Film Project visit www.48hourfilm.com.