One month to make a movie? That’s the challenge of Davis’ new Flash Film Festival

Indie filmmakers have been showing for decades, all you need to make a movie is a camera, a group of friends and a story to tell. 

That’s the creative spirit the first-ever Davis Flash Film Challenge is tapping into.

Filmmakers of all skill levels are invited to participate and have exactly one month to write, shoot and edit an original short film that follows a common prompt.

All the films must include a piece from the City of Davis’ Art in Public Places series and mention the piece by name in the dialog.

The challenge is underway but anyone interested in participating can still sign up. The final deadline to submit a film and signed submission form is 7pm on February 26th.

Everything culminates in a film festival on Saturday, February 28th at Sudwerk Brewing in Davis. Submissions will be showcased, graded by a panel of judges and prizes will be given out, including an audience favorite award.

Documentary filmmaker Craig Musburger is the creator of the Davis Flash Film Festival and founder of the science communication nonprofit Everywhere Science. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Interview highlights

So you are a filmmaker yourself, how did you get started? 

Oh jeez. Well, I came into film kind of through the side door.

My training is as a marine biologist. During grad school, I traveled the world documenting coral reef fish species in many different Pacific islands and everywhere that I traveled, I had to bring a camera along. It was my childhood dream to become Jacques Cousteau and in tandem with building my science bonafides, I started a career as an underwater cameraman. Which kind of blossomed and allowed me to be involved in some really cool creative and filmmaking projects, both marine science related and otherwise.

Given that you started off as a marine biologist, did you always have a love for film and understand the value that film could have in science? 

I did and you know in grad school I earned my PhD in marine zoology at the University of Hawaii. But I knew early on that I wasn't headed towards being a university researcher. I really see the gap in the world's embracing and understanding of science as being a gap in communication. There's so many brilliant scientists doing so much great work, learning so many important things, but that's not translating into action in the real world, unfortunately.

And especially in my field, coral reef ecology, we're seeing massive collapses of coral reefs all around the world. And to me, it's a failure of communication.

So, I really wanted to take my understanding of the language of science and be able to bring it to folks that don't have a PhD in marine biology and to help translate that language into something more digestible and more consumable with the end goal being let's change the course of things. 

Okay, well let's get into the film festival. Why the 1-month time frame? 

We felt like a month was short enough to make it tough. You're going to have to make some compromises, if you're a filmmaker entering this challenge. You're not going to be able to spend 300 hours in the edit bay making every cut exactly right. You're going to have to decide when good enough is good enough. 

Hopefully the goal is to build this into a series and do more of these. This is the first time this has ever been done in Davis. It's a format that has been done in other places really successfully, but it's never been done in our community. And we're really hoping to build this into something that fosters more creativity, gives the creative people of Davis and the surrounding area another outlet to showcase and to learn and to build their capacity.

And all levels of experience, right? You don't have to have fancy equipment to put something together. 

You don't. So, we're going to have some young filmmakers and we've also been working with partners in high schools and UC Davis. We're expecting filmmakers as young as I think seven is our youngest, that's expressed interest and there are some full grown adults who are getting involved too. I think there was a 55-year-old who just wrote us yesterday who wants to be a part of it.

So, all ages, all experience levels and it's just going to be fun and supportive and a positive environment for everybody. 

This culminates in a film festival at the end of February, February 28th at Sudwerk Brewing in Davis.

Is this also open to the public if people maybe didn't participate, but they want to actually see the fruits of filmmaking labor in Davis?

It is open to the public and it is completely free to attend. So, come on down. We're really proud that Sudwerk has partnered with us and is donating the use of their space for this. I really want to also give a shoutout to the City of Davis that's supporting this financially.

We got a grant from the City of Davis Arts & Cultural Affairs Program. They've been super helpful and supportive, getting the word out and really trying to draw attention to the creative community in Davis. So, come on out to the event.