48HOURS

48HOURS is a film-making competition held through 8 major cities in New Zealand; Auckland, Hamilton, Gisborne, Rotorua, Taranaki, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin. It involves teams of various sizes competing across New Zealand to write, shoot, edit and score the best short film, which must be between 1 and 7 minutes long, over a single 48 hour period (usually a weekend). Developed from the US-based 48 Hour Film Project, which was run in Auckland in 2003, 48HOURS is now a New Zealand-only event and has been running since 2004.

The event is organised by New Zealand International Film Festivals stalwart Anthony "Ant" Timpson filmhead. Teams attend a launch ceremony from 6-7pm on a Friday night where each team is given a randomly selected genre within which to base their film's theme. They are also given three compulsory features which are common to all teams. These are a line of dialogue, a prop and a character. A new "technical" element was also included in 2010 and 2011 (a Dolly Zoom and Freeze Frame Ending respectively).

All creative work required to produce the film must be undertaken and completed within the 48 hours of the competition. This includes storylining, scriptwriting, filming, editing and audio mixing. Teams must deliver their finished film to the competition organisers by 7pm on the Sunday evening to be eligible for prizes, although late deliveries will still be screened in the heats.

By 2011 the competition had grown to include more than 800 teams nationwide with at least 10,000 people believed to be involved.