So, those 48 hour film contests. I’m right in thinking they’re all about forcing filmmakers out of their comfort zones, and the endless planning, tinkering with scripts, location scouting, casting sessions, test shots, and continual edit tweaking? The concept’s just about getting them to haul ass for two days and actually have something to show at the end of it. It might not/probably won’t be their best work, some of it might show promise of what could be achieve with motivation and a more reasonable production schedule, but that’s cool cause it’s about the process, the ‘journey’ not the destination. Right?

Well it seems that someone forget to tell Lucas Krost when he set out with his team from filmmaking collective Mondial Creative Labs to create the end of the world in Outliers for the International 48hr Film Competition. Outliers stars Mendy St.Ours, who came to the rescue when the previous lead jumped ship at the last minute, as a lone woman trying to make sense of and stay safe in a city besieged by an apparent lethal virus; where information is sketchy and the lone hope of a vaccine seems more than a little off. Throw in the mostly faceless voice of authority tracking the stages of human reactions to a crisis and you’ve got a nice conspiracy drama on your hands.

While Todd Brusnighan & Patrick Simkins’ script delivers believable dialogue and characters, the concept at the heart of Outliers is pretty run of the mill. What undoubtedly marks the film as noteworthy is the level of production value achieved over the 48 hour period. Given the genre ‘End of the World’ (the international round of 48hr didn’t require a line of dialogue, prop and character), Team Mondial have delivered a polished, entertaining short that is far superior to many of the films I see created without the arduous time restraint – despite the many howls of disbelief online they insist that the posted film is as presented at the end of the contest with no additional work.

To be fair to those thinking ‘WTF!’, Team Mondial came to this round of 48hr prepared with, “$500 + 200,000 in favors”, plus had already been through the 48hr process with their mockumentary short Neighborhood Watch, which is effective but no where near as ambitious. Locations were scouted and casting sessions held a week before the competition kicked off, then once the genre was assign the script was written from 7pm on the Friday to early Saturday morning and actors and locations finalised. The team shot straight for the next 24 hours, DPs Johnny St. Ours and Spencer Meffert armed with dual Reds fitted with Red Prime and Zeiss Super Speed lenses. To keep things moving, once a scene wrapped, the drive was hurried over to the Final Cut Pro editor, who worked from proxies, then 1080 cropped. Color correction was handled in RedCine, GFX in After Effects.

Outliers earnt Krost his second trip to the Cannes Film Festival Short Film Corner (his short Feels Like Drowning screened in 2008) and Team Mondial are said to have a feature in the works. Can’t see them needing more than week to pull that off.