Culture

ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) – The Ohio University School of Media Arts and Studies hosted its 48-Hour Shootout challenge from February 6 to February 8, and one team, The Toilettes, emerged as its victors.

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The challenge is designed to test competitors’ filmwriting, production, and acting skills by giving them 48 hours to put together short films. Teams are assigned a random quote, prop, and genre that the film must include. The films are then assessed by judges and viewed by fellow competitors, professors, and students.

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The Toilettes, a team of six led by Scarlett Fried, a fourth-year media production major, won for their short film Another Western Movie. The Toilettes are made up of Scarlett Fried, Aslyn Fannin, Ryan Schwieger, Natalie Parsons, Daniel Gorbett, and Gigi Twachtman.

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Fried, Fannin, and Schwieger spoke about having prior experience in the 48-Hour Shootout. Fried has participated all four years as a part of the Rough Cut Collective, a student organization where students come together and make short films.

“I just kept doing it for the thrill of it, honestly,” Fried said. “Leading up to it, I’m like, ‘Why did I sign up for this?’ but [in] the moment, I’m like, ‘Oh, this is a blast’.”

Fannin, a music production and recording industry student, participated in the 48-Hour Shootout last year, per a friend’s suggestion. She found that it was helpful for her major.

“I found that it builds a skill that is necessary to be in the media industry at all,” Fannin said. “It’s kind of like this cool, other world I found on top of my love for music.”

​Schwieger, a third-year media production major, has done the 48-Hour Shootout five times now.

“We [Rough Cut Film Collective] host a fall 48 as an in-team competition to give people the opportunity to both practice for the 48 and learn the basics of filmmaking for newer members,” said Schwieger.

Naturally, the 48-Hour Shootout is hard enough, given the time constraint, but being given unfavorable prompts makes it that much harder. The Toilettes were tasked with making a short western film, featuring a potted plant and using the quote, “Aliens? We have to deal with aliens, too?”

“The person on our team who wrote the film said, ‘We need to come up with at least five ideas and work through that,” Fried said. “It’s hard to come up with one idea that has to do with western cowboys and aliens and plants … We were just kind of stumped, [and] sitting in the writer’s room for a long time.”

The team went back and forth over several ideas; in fact, the original plan for the film was a romance.

“We had an idea to do romance… when we thought in depth about … it was just way too complicated. We didn’t have enough time to flesh out a story that we could properly get done in 48 hours.” Fried said.

Creating ideas is difficult, but executing them is just as challenging. Schwieger contributed to the film through video editing, camera work, and acting. He explained some of the obstacles that came with the prompt and this challenge in general.

“One of the key components of a western movie is its long, sweeping shots outside. So, we had to go outside; it was 19 degrees as the high for the day, and it was snowy. Having to be outside for nine hours was very brutal.” Schwieger said.

Fannin used the phrase “small but mighty” frequently when referring to the team. Larger teams usually span 10 to 15 members, making them among the smaller teams in the competition. Fried even mentioned that this was one of the smallest teams she’d ever worked with in her four years.

The odds weren’t stacked favorably for The Toilettes. They were a small team, given unfavorable prompts, and forced to shoot outside in the frigid cold. Adverse circumstances such as these could have deterred them, but instead, they shifted their focus from winning to having fun.

“You can approach the 48 multiple ways, where it’s ‘I want to make a film to have fun with my friends,’ or ‘I want to make a film that can win.’” Schwieger said. “It’s kind of a testament that allowing yourself to focus more on the fun sides of making a project with your friends can end up making a better film …We wanted to have more fun.”

“I went home, and I was talking to my parents, and they were like, ‘What was the best thing about doing the 48 [Hour Shootout],’ and I was like, ‘We just had so much fun together,” Fried said. “We laughed our way through the day, and we were cracking up all day long, having fun.”

Prioritizing fun was the winning strategy since The Toilettes won Best Overall Film. It was shocking to them, given the competition.

“I was like, you’re actually joking. There are some of these teams with phenomenally talented people. They had 10 or 15 people. … Everything about all of the films this year was just so fantastically done,” Fannin said. “…We had so much fun that I didn’t think that we took it seriously enough to win, but then we did, and that was really cool.”

“It’s such a privilege to be doing what we’re doing. The fact that we go somewhere where we have the resources to compete in something so fun … I just feel lucky,” Fannin said.

You can see the full competition film screening livestream below. 

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