Images Cinema brings back its 24-hour filmmaking event

WILLIAMSTOWN - For filmmakers Sadie Miller and Nick Baker, 24 hours was more than enough time to make a 2 minute, 13 second film.

At least, that's what they thought.

"We had our 350 photos shot and put them into I-Movies," Miller recalled. "But 15 minutes before the deadline, there we were working with the program trying to figure out how to burn the DVD."

What was the rush?

Miller and Baker were under the gun to get their short film, "Un Homage A Mitose," in the right format for submission to the 2006 edition of Images Cinema's 24-Hour Goosechase and Free-For-All.

The sixth annual version of the event will be held Saturday and Sunday, May 10 and 11, at the nonprofit single-screen cinema at 50 Spring St.

Starting at 11:30 a.m. on May 10, individuals and teams competing in this year's Goosechase will learn the "secret clues" to the competition. The clues - usually an object and a phrase - must then be incorporated into the film of no more than 3 minutes, which competitors have to submit by noon on May 11.

The clues are fairly open-ended. Last year, it was an egg and the phrase, "All time is all time. It does not change,"

from Kurt Vonnegut's

When Miller and Baker teamed up, it was a pair of red wax lips and the question, "Ah ... but can you do this?"

Miller said she and her partner did it with stop-motion animation and a desire to celebrate cells.

"Nick and I sat down with a blank piece of paper and tried to figure out what we like and what we wanted to spend 24 hours doing together without killing each other," said Miller, who now lives in Providence, R.I.

"It turned out both of us like cell replication and the shape of cells and stop animation as a medium."

The end result, which you can view at YouTube.com by searching for the title, is the "story" of a cell undergoing mitosis, the process of division into two identical cells. In a dramatic turn, one of the daughter cells is attacked by a virus, and a white blood cell attacks the intruder.

The wax lip clue appears at the beginning of "Un Homage," quickly transforming into the parent cell. And the "can you do this?" phrase?

"Because our film was silent, we spelled it out," Miller said.

Finding a way to incorporate the clues into the film is just one of the creative challenges confronting participants in Goosechase.

Another challenge can be figuring out how to beat the deadline without beating up your partner.

"One year, I decided to participate in the event, so I wasn't involved in the planning," said this year's organizer, Images Managing Director Janet Curran. "It was stressful. Our group actually splintered into two groups just because of personality conflicts. Both groups made our videos in the same space, but we had separate submissions."

The event drew about 20 submissions last spring, Curran said. The participants come from throughout the region and a variety of age groups.

"It brings out the great diversity of the community," said Miller, who lived in Williamstown for two years as a community organizer for AmeriCorps' Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) program. "Images is so grassroots and community centered, and that's very rare. This event involves a lot of high school videographers. The age of participants is quite diverse. It's not just college kids."

Curran said past participants have included middle school-aged children and families working together as teams.

Miller's partner, Baker, is a Williams College librarian whose YouTube site features 13 films of 5 minutes or fewer. Another past Goosechaser is Williamstown filmmaker, musician and Internet entrepreneur Todd Howard.

"A lot of kids who live in the area tend to come back year after year," Curran said. "We have a group in Bennington who comes every year. ... We definitely get a lot of repeats."

The public is invited to watch this year's entries at 1 p.m. on May 11. The films will be judged by a panel of experts, but the audience also will vote on prizes.

Miller and Baker's 2006 entry won the award for "Most Creative Use of the Required Elements." Part of the secret, perhaps, was that the pair did not enter the competition with any preconceived notions about what sort of film they would create, Miller said.

"The idea for the film was something that happened within the first hour after we got the clues," she said. "The clues are really part of the creative process.

"Some people might come in and say, 'We really want to do a film noir,' or 'We want to go and play at a farm.' But there really is no way to prepare. That's what makes it exciting.

"It takes a full 24 hours."

No registration is necessary to participate; interested videographers just need to show up to the clue unveiling on Saturday, May 10, at 11:30 a.m. There is no charge to attend the screening at 1 p.m. on Sunday, May 11, but donations will be accepted. Info: 413-458-1039.