Buffalo has a rich history in filmmaking that goes all the way back to 1897. That was the year that Thomas Edison came to town with his kinetoscope and shot some of his earlier films, including shorts of the fire department putting out a fire, the police department on parade and the East Side stockyards.

Perhaps it was this history that caught the attention of the organizers of the 48 Hour Film Project. Or, more likely, it was the mountains of relatively unmined filmmaking talent here in town that brought the international filmmaking contest and festival here in its seventh year.

The 48 Hour Film Project is a filmmaking contest that allows local filmmakers only two days to devise, shoot and produce a short film. It was started in 2001 by Washington, DC-based filmmaker Mark Ruppert. He’d heard of the 24-Hour Play Project in Minneapolis, and wondered how that might apply to film. As the project’s Web site states, the big question then was, “Would films made in only 48 hours even be watchable?” It turns out they were, and in the seven ensuing year, the project has spread to 61 cities and has involved an estimated 45,000 participants.

So far, 18 Buffalo teams are registered for what they might more aptly call the No Sleep Film Project, or the Film Shorts on Speed Project. To prepare for the creative mayhem, several of the teams have been meeting to brainstorm and practice the type of on-your-feet thinking required by the time constraints. Robert Lingle of Hightops Productions says he’s been “pulling a couple of all-nighters to prepare for the lack of sleep I’ll be getting.”

Besides having a fun, creative weekend, part of the idea of the project is to help filmmakers see their work through to fruition by imposing a hard and fast deadline. As any filmmaker will tell you, films traditionally take forever to make. There are so many steps involved that often a short film will take months, or even years, to complete. It’s easy to lose interest in a project when you’re bogged down in production steps, and too many potentially great films go unfinished.

That doesn’t seem to be a problem among Buffalo’s crop, though. They appear to be looking at the numerous challenges offered by the 48 Hour Film Project with hungry eyes. David Williams of the Red Scream Team jokes, “We’re used to shooting films with impossible schedules and laughable budgets.” There are, of course, worries. “Anytime you put a tight deadline on a creative project of this magnitude there are going to be worries about finishing on time,” Williams says. “What if a camera breaks? What if an actor gets sick?”

Other teams, like BeHoLD and SWL Productions, seem to think they’ve got the situation under control. Jason Holler of BeHoLD says they’ve “prepared for the majority of foreseen problems, and…eliminated a good deal of stress.” Stress and set guidelines are sure to get creative juices and adrenaline flowing, along with stay-awake tactics.

To prepare for the weekend of filmmaking, competitors must secure their sets, cameras and actors. Those are the major things. As Dan Sheron of SWL Producation points out, though, there’s more to being ready than having the physical necessities. He says that his team has been “throwing ideas around…thinking about the smaller, more universal details that could be applied to any movie in preparation.” The name of the game is creativity and lots of it; practicing improvisational thought and brainstorming all the possible downfalls helps teams to prepare.

Although filmmakers will have to come up with their own, original ideas, project organizers have thrown a couple of monkey wrenches, in the form of assigned genres and required elements, into the works for good measure. 15 minutes before the project officially begins—6:45pm on Friday evening—teams will draw their genre literally from a hat. There are 14 genres, including, among others, superhero, detective/cop, road movie, holiday film, buddy film and horror. Additionally, organizers will draw three required elements—a character, a prop and a line of dialogue—from a hat. Past examples include Ignazio del Fuego, Cab Driver; snow globe and “When you say it like that, it’s almost poetry.”

The shorts must be between four and seven minutes long, which means they’ll have to pack a lot of punch to captivate an audience. Since it’s Buffalo’s first year in the competition, a landmark within city limits must appear in the film. Joseph DiDomizio and his team, AWK of Buffalo, think they’ve got an idea. “It would be nice to try to pull off a western-style shoot out in Lafayette Square,” he says. Think Thursday at the Square, but with cowboys and Indians, now there’s a film! Other teams, on the other hand, have been more secretive about the landmark they’re ogling for their film. Holler (BeHoLD) says, “The landmark will add meaning to the story, it won’t just be thrown in because it’s mandated.”

Many of the competitors are looking forward to showcasing Western New York’s talent, ingenuity and spectacular architecture. Another great incentive the 48 Hour Film Project brings to local filmmakers is that their work will be shown at the Market Arcade on August 15 and 16. It’s a rare opportunity to see their work jump from celluloid to the big screen…almost instantly.

Local awards will be given out then, and the winner will go on to compete internationally against the other 61 winners from cities near and far.

Load up your cameras, filmmakers, and don’t forget SPoT’s open until midnight on Friday and Saturday.