The MGC Film Club taking on the challenge of participating in the Vista Foundation’s 48 Hour Film Festival.

The 48 Hour Film Festival is an annual competition that has been active since 2003, and has since become New Zealand’s largest short film contest. The festival is open to all age groups, attracting a multitude of people - including school teams and adults. It aims to create a valuable opportunity for aspiring amateurs to get their films out there and screened.

On Friday, the film club gathered to watch the 48 Hour Live Stream, where they would be assigned a genre as well as some particular elements they had to involve in their film. To their surprise, the genre was revealed to be splatter - which is defined as a subgenre of horror that centres around realistic depictions of gore and violence. Next, they learned they had to include a traveller, an exit, a match-cut, and a warning, which they weaved carefully into the script.

Immediately, they got to writing the script, about Saturday detention. The short film was aptly titled Final Bell.

Early Saturday, the girls gathered at MGC, eager to begin filming. Armed with a bucket of fake blood, colossal tarpaulins, and temporary tattoo wounds, they flung themselves into filming. Once again, promptly the next morning, they met at the school, filmed a few final scenes, and began editing, hoping to finish in time for the film to be exported and uploaded to the competition website by 7pm Sunday.

The students encountered some major technical difficulties and other obstacles (as you always do when you’re short on time), but they managed to push through and produced a brutal, yet comedic, splatter film, complete with all the required elements. The film is available to watch in the screening room.

A great time was had by all and valuable lessons were learned and the students are ready to do it all again, next time.

Sören Maclaren | Manutaki Hangarau (Digital)

Cast and crew:

• Director/Cinematographer- Lucy Heath
• Assistant Director - Geoff Anderson (Local stuntman and filmmaker)
• Producer - Shalom Del’Monte-Aberhart
• Art Director - Jordana Parish
• Sound - Sören Maclaren, Sydney White
• Actors - Geoff Anderson, Shalom Del’Monte-Aberhart, Cat Forsyth, Brooke Pontague, Malin Svoboda, Freya Lawson, Sören Maclaren
• Writers - Lucy Heath, Sören Maclaren, Malin Svoboda, Brooke Pontague, Cat Forsyth, Riley Avery, Jordana Parish
• Editors - Lucy Heath, Malin Svoboda