Sam Washington wins Smoke & Mirrors 48 hour

Thursday 17 November, Smoke & Mirrors 48 Hour Film Competition announced it’s 2011 Winner. After a gruelling 48 hours of writing, shooting and editing, 39 teams successfully submitted their short films to the Smoke & Mirrors 48 Hour Film Competition on the 31st October. This year’s theme ‘Lost’ saw some interesting interpretations and due to the exceptionally high standard of all of the films submitted it took the judges a week to finally settle on a shortlist of six, twice the number of previous years. 
 

The shortlisted teams, plus a rabble of supporters from across the industry, gathered together in Shoreditch last Thursday where the winning film was finally announced - ‘Lost and Found’ by Director Sam Washington, recent signing at Another Film Company. Prior to announcing the winning film Gary Szabo, MD of Smoke & Mirrors and the 48 Hour competition organiser informed the crowd “One of the judges wanted to give this film a perfect 10, but we had to talk them out of it as that would mean someone would have made the perfect 48 hour film and we would have to shut the competition down. So, they gave it a 9.5.” 
 

Danielle Simpson, fellow competition organiser, said, “This year was the first time that not one person approached the judges to say that a different film should have won.”
 

Washington said of the film; "In the week leading up to the competition, Alan [Stewart, DP] and I, with the help of Another Film Company, made good use of the incredible generosity of Arri Media and Panalux. Arri kitted us out with a Canon 7D camera body that was retrofitted with a PL lens mount, enabling us to use a couple of Angenieux zoom lenses with the matte box, filters and follow focus that allow for a professional workflow. Meanwhile, Panalux supplied a versatile lighting kit to Alan’s specifications that would see us through most situations."
 

The film, which follows a woman who loses her car in a multi-storey car park, was the first idea that popped into Washington's head and once that was nailed the shoot could begin. "Will [Jasper, first AD] and I hit the phones," explains Washington, "first securing cast, then taking advice from a location manager contact about where we could get away with guerilla filming in a multistory car park, which was the main location. By midnight, I was emailing out a script and call-sheet to cast and crew, complete with movement order and schedule. If you’re going to do something, you may as well do it properly!"
 

Sam’s winning film, along with all of the other submitted films, can be seen on the competition vimeo site here:http://vimeo.com/groups/sm48hrs