UNO Alumni Rack Up Awards at The New Orleans 48-Hour Project

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uno alumni rack up awards at the new orleans 48-hour project

A team of University of New Orleans alumni recently racked up awards at a New Orleans film festival that required participants to write, direct, shoot and edit a film within 48 hours.

The Wand, written and directed by UNO alumnus Andrew Bryan with the help of fellow alumni, recently debuted to much acclaim at the The New Orleans 48 Hour Film Project, a local event in which filmmakers join more than 50,000 filmmakers in 120 cities on six continents. The competition took place over the weekend of July 26-28 in New Orleans.

"The 48 Hour Film Project is a wild and sleepless weekend in which you and a team make a movie—write, shoot, edit and score it—in just 48 hours," say local organizers on the project's website. "On Friday night, you get a character, a prop, a line of dialogue and a genre, all to include in your movie. 48 hours later, the movie must be complete. Then it will show at a local theater, usually in the next week."

The Wand, produced under the moniker 7th and Constance, is a five-minute fantasy film that begins with Bryan's toddler daughter, Adriana, dressed head to toe in pink. She receives a wand from her father -- and promptly uses it to make dreams come true. Toys appear on her bed. Cookies fill the cookie jar. A stuffed animal becomes a real live bunny. Everything is better with magic, until...the wand goes missing.

The production was "comprised almost entirely of UNO film students and alumni," said Bryan. Together with UNO alumnus Mark Twain Williams. Bryan's wife, Chelsea Hebert produced and played the grown-up role of her daughter's character, while their daughter Adriana won Best Actress. UNO alumna Wendy Granger served as the film's art director and script supervisor.

Bryan recommended that "more students do the 48-Hour competition. It's no doubt stressful, but at the end of the weekend, you walk away with a finished product. If it's not so good, no big deal—you only spent two days on it. But, if it is good, it truly is rewarding to come away with something you're proud of under such extreme limitations in making it."