Heavenly Hollywood

Even the lowest-budget Hollywood films have a few weeks to deal with production and setting all the details in stone before shooting. But for the past three years, the 168 Hour Film Festival has been challenging young filmmakers to produce short films up to 10 minutes in length, from the first shot through the final edit and music scoring, in just one week.

But there is an even greater challenge and purpose to this festival, which will screen all the completed films and honor the best entries with an awards ceremony Saturday at the Alex Theatre in Glendale. Each of the 52 competing teams of filmmakers have to make their films resonate with the message of a Bible verse, which their executive producer selects randomly from a basket at a pre-filming meeting, without making audiences feel like they’ve been beaten over the head with a Bible. The challenge comes in beating the strict deadline because if a team misses it, their film will be screened but is ineligible for any awards.

I leaped into the festival myself this year, determined to make a comedy, since most entries in the three previous years have been dramatic in nature. And in shooting "Curb Your Evangelism," a satire of a televangelist who’s let his fame go to his head, I learned that even on a set where shared religious beliefs were meant to bring team members together, the pressure of making a film on the fly could strain friendships nearly as often as strengthen them.

"I think the process was crazy. It was very addicting and the creative part was so much fun, but the business is such a pain. The process that they put it into 168 hours is evil and causes problems," says Ron Pearson, a 15-year veteran of standup comedy with numerous TV acting appearances to his credit, who starred in and co-executive produced "Curb" with fellow top LA standup Jay Davis. "My wife doesn't appreciate it, and it caused strains with friendships that wouldn't happen without that schedule. If this is supposed to be a Christian thing, I don't see what good's coming out of not seeing my wife and kids. But on the other hand, I think the story that we came up with has ministered to me in a weird way, and I appreciate that."

The "168," as participants call it, was the brainchild of John Ware, a member of the now-defunct Christian film-industry group Slate Entertainment Fellowship who wanted to create a competition that could inspire his fellow Christians to stop talking about what they deemed wrong with the industry and start making films on their own terms. When the fest debuted in 2003, 13 films screened for 600 viewers at the final showcase, but at last year’s competition there were 57 films screening for more than 1,000 people, prompting the move to the 1,350-seat Alex Theatre.

This year’s competition also inspired the production of a reality TV series about the filmmaking process, in which 12 teams were selected to be followed by a film crew documenting

their most challenging moments for a series that will be shown worldwide on the Trinity Broadcasting Network.

"The festival’s been growing rapidly, to the point where we have filmmaking teams from six states and three countries, including Kenya, Italy and New Zealand, even before having a series like this getting the word out," says Ware, who runs the festival with Michael Wech and Carl Swanson. "The films skew towards teenagers more than family audiences, because these are thought-provoking films that are definitely PG-13 as well as PG and G."

More impressive is the caliber of the festival’s judges, who have ranged from major producers like Ralph Winter ("The X-Men," "Fantastic Four") and David McFadzean ("What Women Want," "Home Improvement") to executives from MGM and 20th Century Fox. Those judges will decide on awards including Best Picture and acting honors from a pool of 20 finalist films selected by another panel of viewers who have to watch the full pool of 55 films. The top 15 films will screen starting at 7 p.m. as the filmmakers nervously wait to see if they’re taking home a trophy.

"There were definitely nice moments where people checked themselves, saying ‘remember why we're doing this, that this was from a Christian viewpoint,’" says "Curb" director Michael Tahvildari, who noted the one-week filmmaking process was far less time than he normally puts into the planning stages alone. "Patience was a big challenge, but I learned the greatest thing you can have is patience. Stay humble. You're part of a team. Keep your ego down because there were a lot of talented people who are used to doing things their way."

Ultimately, the 168 is about more than scrambling for shots on a film set and the ego clashes that almost inevitably spring up. It was also about more than arguing over lines, which locations to use and who got the best close-up.

"I think people have always been hungry for this product, and it just hasn't been delivered. If [that need] is not met, they'll go watch something else, but given a choice on TV they'll choose this because it's compelling, not pulling punches, not fake. It's the real deal," says Ware, in speaking about both the fest’s films and the TV series. "The technology has had to get to a point where you can get inexpensive gear that is possible to use in a broadcast kind of medium. And also to have the Christian community work really hard to get where they are, really hard. They've had to get by with a lot less money than their secular counterparts."