Teresa Widdowson has tried five years in a row to win the San
Jose 48 Hour Film Project. This year was her big break.
Teresa Widdowson has tried five years in a row to win the San Jose 48 Hour Film Project. This year was her big break.
After 48 hours of work from Friday Aug. 12 at 6:30 p.m. through the 14th, her team “The South Bay Shooters” won best picture and best use of line for their film titled “Give Me a Sign.”
The rules are simple: the team has 48 hours to write, shoot and edit an original short film that cannot be longer than eight minutes. They must include a given prop, a chair this time, and incorporate this year’s phrase “Give me some kind of sign” in their film. The team is given a genre at random in San Jose; The South Bay Shooters received romance this year.
All the filmmaking magic occurred at Widdowson’s home in Morgan Hill: from writing and filming to editing. She was the director and producer for the movie. Ryan Wood of Hollister, was director of photography, with the post-production staff of Grant Ellis and Stephen Scheiff.
It took Widdowson, who is an instructor at Gavilian College as well as the supervising editor for GavTV, an hour to write the screenplay. They spent all day Saturday filming scenes, with two actresses Sara Smith of Hollister and Tasha Standridge of San Martin and actor Nick Fryou from Aromas already pre-chosen before the competition started.
Without revealing the plot, Widdowson said the film is about a woman who is trying to be romantic to her man yet “just keeps screwing it up,” she said. The man doesn’t get the sign that the relationship isn’t going to work. It’s then an unexpected turn of events happens.
Although the team of 10 people had the full 48 hours to work on the project, the group did sleep, said Widdowson, and managed to be done early before the clock struck 6:30 p.m. that Sunday.
Widdowson found out Sept. 8 that her team had won the honor of best film, a trophy and a Magic Movie Screenwriter Software 6. The team was also nominated for Best Direction and Best Female Lead.
“I just wanted something this year, I’m shocked that I got best film,” she said. “My main goal is to have fun, the second is to make a good movie.”
“Give Me a Sign” will move on to represent San Jose in Filmapalooza 2012 in Taos, New Mexico in March 2012. The film can be seen this year at the Poppy Jasper Short Film Festival Oct. 14-16 in Morgan HIll, along with her film “Exit Exam.”
