Duke students will soon venture into the world of extreme filmmaking.
This spring, 10 teams of student actors, directors and production managers will take three original screenplays written by their classmates and turn them into short films – within 24 hours.
In a single day of frenzied filmmaking next March, these teams will shoot and edit their movies, which will be screened for a campus audience the following day in Griffith Theater.
The best film, as selected by a movie industry panel, will receive a $500 award from the Film/Video/Digital Program.
The Movie Making Marathon (MMM) gets underway this Saturday, Oct. 14, with a screenwriting workshop open to all undergraduates and graduate students. Elisabeth Benfey, a lecturing fellow in the Department of Theater Studies, will lead the workshop at noon in Room 128 of the Bryan Center. She said all students need to bring is an idea.
"People aren't usually walking around with a screenplay under their arm," Benfey said. "You have an idea, something you read or heard about, maybe a story from your family lore. It struck a chord in you, stayed with you. But you don't know how to turn it into an exciting story. That's what we'll explore in the first workshop."
In a second workshop, on Nov. 2, participants will learn the basic tools of scriptwriting to help them turn their story into a movie.
Following the workshops, aspiring screenwriters can call on other students, staff and online filmmaking resources for assistance. Screenplays must be submitted to the MMM competition by Nov. 15, and over winter break, a committee will select three scripts for production.
In February, the MMM Crew Call will be held. Students from across campus with interest and/or experience in any aspect of film can sign up to join one of the 10 movie-making teams.
The four- or five-person teams will each produce a randomly assigned screenplay during the weekend of March 25-27. Using cameras and other gear from OIT, they'll have 12 hours to shoot their film and 12 hours to edit. Because there will be more teams than scripts, some will be shooting the same story.
The Movie Making Marathon was the brainchild of Annie Fleishman, a Trinity junior from Fayetteville.
"I was on the elliptical at the gym, reading a magazine article about famous New York playwrights and actors working together to produce plays within 24 hours for charity," Fleishman said. "Walking home, I thought, ‘Why can't we do that with film?'
"Duke couldn't have been more supportive," Fleishman added. "Provost Peter Lange embraced the project and provided funding. Elisabeth Benfey said, ‘Let's do it.'"
Now she and MMM co-chair Shannon Rowbury are working with OIT to promote the Duke Digital Initiative and build on the success of the FroshLife iMovie Festival. They're enlisting support from writers and directors in Theater Studies. Cable 13, Freewater Productions, Freewater Presentations and Film/Video/Digital are all sponsors.
"This little idea has grown into a huge project that connects so many resources on campus," says Fleishman.
To learn more, go to the MovieMaking Marathon website.