Speed

The room at the Cavalier Inn stank to high heaven. Late-night detritus — pizza boxes, coffee cups, burger wrappers — littered the floor. People were sleeping where they dropped. That was the scene confronting Hollywood director Tom Shadyac (Government ’81) as he walked through the door. “Tom just turned to me and exclaimed ‘This is the coolest thing ever! This is what filmmaking’s all about!’” recounted Jeff Wadlow to a sold-out crowd in Newcomb Hall Theater, welcoming them to the Volvo Adrenaline Film Project.

The event, executive produced by Los Angeles-based filmmaker Wadlow, along with his producing partner Beau Bauman, returned for its third year of blitzkrieg filmmaking. The project is fast becoming a Film Festival favorite, and its premise is brutally simple: 10 teams of three aspiring filmmakers have just 72 hours to write, shoot and edit a short film, with the payoff of a Sunday afternoon screening and award presentation in front of a capacity crowd. Each team is given a film genre (action/adventure, fantasy, etc.) and required to incorporate a prop and a line of dialogue (this year, a jar of Miracle Whip and “I want to believe it,” both befitting this year’s festival theme — religion).

Wadlow and Bauman serve as part mentor, part protective angel — much like executive producers do on a film set — to shepherd the creativity and test the stamina of the filmmakers, many of whom are locally based or come from the University. “We don’t want to see them fail,” says Wadlow. “Sometimes we need to get in the way. They need someone who keeps an eye on the big picture.”

This year, they brought in director Brad Silberling, Shadyac and U.Va. alumnus Derek Sieg (English ’98) as guest mentors to advise the teams during the editing process. Sieg, who screened his debut film “Swedish Auto” on the festival’s opening night, was on hand to advise two teams of high-school students. Their participation was helped in part through a Film Festival partnership with Lighthouse, a high-school media access group.

For the past two years, Han West (Media Studies, English ’07) has been in charge of the project’s day-to-day management. A participant in the first Adrenaline Film Project in 2004, he created this year’s “Man in the Water” trailer which appeared before each film shown during the festival. “This event does require a certain proficiency in filmmaking,” says West. “We’ve had a couple of teams come from the cinematography class in studio art.”

West, who is applying to film schools in hopes of pursuing a career in the industry, says that what makes the Volvo Adrenaline Film Project work is its emphasis on education rather than just competition. “This is the only event I know of that is educational in this way, with successful industry people coming in to help. This is where it’s really unique.”

Wadlow, a Charlottesville native who is also a Film Festival board member, recalls that the Adrenaline Film Project was born out of a burst of extreme filmmaking during the 2004 festival, whose theme, naturally, was “Speed.” “I suggested to Richard [Herskowitz] that we create a sort of speedy-production seminar, where teams will make films over the course of the festival, and the next thing I know, he’s saying, ‘It’s happening. And you’re going to run it,’” he recalls with a laugh.

“Like a lot of our innovations, we tried it out once and then we institutionalized it,” notes festival director Herskowitz. “We found a way to make it a permanent part of the festival. It’s got its own infrastructure that’s mostly student managed, but there is a lot of film festival staff oversight. The first year there was no doubt that this was something that was never going to go away. This one was born a hit.”

This year, despite uniformly excellent competition, Charlottesville filmmakers Ben Haslup, Brian Wimer and Ruth Morton won both the Audience and Jury awards for their innovative, laugh-out-loud entry, “Taste of Evil,” a film noir spoof on a power struggle among the condiments inhabiting a refrigerator.

Wadlow says he loves the energy of the filmmaking teams and the community vibe that has grown up around the event. “I stress to all the teams that it’s important to just get the film done,” he says. “It doesn’t matter if it’s great. If you think about it too much it gets precious. You’re putting together something that’s meant to be screened. It’s all about the audience. That’s powerful.”

Watch all of this year's Adrenaline Film Project entries.