Forty-Eight Hours

Inside the Japanese Gardens at Hermann Park, the Devil stands on a bridge savoring her doughnut. It’s a cherry-filled glaze, and the red goo bulging out matches the temptress’s horns and tail. It’s the exact sort of treat our hero, Alan, can’t resist.

“Goddamn, this doughnut is really good. Check out this jelly,” she beckons.

“I can’t,” Alan stammers, but before he can get out of there, the Devil breaks into song, channeling the most sultry lounge singer to ever end up south of the Styx.

I got a little sugar, I got a little bit of breakfast spice.

It’s cooked in a tub of lard, so you know it tastes extra nice.

You gotta eat the goddamn doughnut, Alan. You gotta eat the goddamn chow.

Let the jelly squirt all over your face, just put the motherfucker in your mouth!

As Alan succumbs to temptation, devouring the treat in orgiastic bliss, a family passes nearby, enjoying the extra shade offered in the garden. Their mouths hang down as they take in the scene. Local writer Greg Hundemer, the author of the Devil’s doughnut song, steps out from behind a tree. “It’s for a movie,” he explains. The family seems to get it, but they hurry off and out of the garden.

If they didn’t understand what they saw, they’re not alone. Hundemer’s team of filmmakers isn’t the only one confusing the locals this weekend. Eighteen other teams are also out in Houston, shooting horror flicks, science fiction and comedies, each creating a finished short movie in under 48 hours. It’s a competition — the films will be screened and the winners announced at 6 p.m. August 15 at the Alamo Drafthouse.

Started in 2000 as a way to energize local film communities, the 48 Hour Film Project has grown to include nearly 30 cities, landing this year, for the first time, in Houston. The rules are simple. Teams draw for genres and then are given a character, a prop and a line of dialogue that must be included in each film. Then the clock starts ticking.

“The 48 Hour Film Project kind of tosses out all your perceived roadblocks,” says Mark Ruppert, one of the project’s creators. While the competition invariably produces crap, the amazing thing is how often the movies are good. In Austin one year the prop was an ordinary brick, which in the hands of one team became a weapon of mass destruction. The spoof played great and was one of the best films he’s seen, Ruppert says. “Our whole mission is to get the filmmakers out there, doing what they’re supposed to be doing: making movies.”

At the Last Concert Cafe on the eve of the competition, Houston producer Cheryal Loosmore has just announced the shared elements. Each film must include a speed walker named A. Novabill, a doughnut and the line “You know I’m keeping a record of this.”

The dozens of filmmakers begin plotting. Houston’s community of generally overweight, balding film geeks leaps at the chance to shine. “I want to reserve the police station,” one can be heard saying.

“We encourage you not to use guns,” Loosmore warns, alluding to an incident in Philadelphia but refusing to elaborate beyond saying, “It caused quite a scene.”

In the back of the room sit Hundemer and his partner, director Phil Hays. Hays clutches his umbrella, coolly examining the competition. Meticulously groomed and neatly dressed, he admits, “I’m a bit of a control freak.” Hundemer is not. With a ‘fro that would wow any slacker wannabe, Hundemer sports dirty sneakers and an old Grateful Dead shirt that he’ll wear for the rest of the weekend. Both theater students at the University of Houston, the two are participating in the project for the second time. They worked as writers on another team during Austin’s competition last month but decided to stake one out on their own. As amateurs, they’re working at a severe disadvantage. The head of their Austin team, Fresnel Phan, has to drop off the camera they’ll use.

“They’re our former writers,” Phan says. “We’ve got to help them out.” Phan is leading his own RAM Studio team in the competition and is so confident that he’s having a friend shoot a making-of video. “For the DVD,” he explains. Phan’s plan is to capitalize on his team’s technical expertise, while Hays and Hundemer will rely on acting talent and a creative script.

It’s a Hollywood maxim that a good script can still produce a bad movie but that a bad script will always produce a bad movie. Phan’s team is trying to prove Hollywood wrong. After three rewrites and “heated discussion,” the group has finally settled on a mockumentary concerning rear-motor anxiety, or backseat driving. Even though their script is missing jokes and action, the competition is nearly 20 hours old and they have to start shooting. The team’s equipment of walkie-talkies, boom mikes and two high-end digital cameras is impressive, though not enough to stop traffic in the suburbs.

“This is an impossible shot. I don’t know how it’s going to happen,” Phan says. Cars keep driving into the shot, sending their speed walker, Armstrong Novabill, scurrying for the sidewalk. “We’re going to try to block the road.” When that fails, the team moves to a more secluded road. Mark Delz, shooting the making-of video, un-ironically sums up the problem: “Actually, this is a pretty boring shot. I’ll wait for the speed walking.”

After the weekend, a notably less cocky Phan takes responsibility for the problems.

“We lost our writers, and our replacement writers kind of flaked out on us. We were forced to go with a friend who was a poet who had no script experience, and she didn’t take control like a writer should. She just provided input instead, so it degenerated into groupthink,” he says. “Our genre really handicapped us. It kept us from using our technical knowledge and stuff.”

Across town, in Hermann Park, things are going smoothly for Hays and Hundemer. Their musical, about a slob named Alan who takes up speed walking to stay fit, was hammered out in one sitting by Hundemer. Hays tears a paper towel from a roll and removes his glasses to wipe his brow. The entire team is dripping with sweat, but he’s pleased with the shooting. “I work well under pressure,” he says. “If you gave me a year to make a movie, it wouldn’t be a good experience.”

Bernardo Cubria plays the goofy speed walker, whose style could earn him a job at Monty Python’s Ministry of Funny Walks. As he stands in his bulging ’70s-style too-short shorts, he says, “I really feel like we’re shooting a low-budget porn.” As if on cue, Audra Resendez, playing the Devil, calls out, “Hold on, I’ve got glaze on my face.”