Don’t tell local filmmaker Matt Wechsler he’s not competitive. Having earned the runner-up slot in the 2009 Chicago 24 Hour Film Race, he was eager for a shot at redemption and came up a bigger winner for the effort.
“I wanted to win. That’s the only reason I entered a second time,” says Wechsler, 31, a Glenview native who lives in Roscoe Village and runs Hourglass Films, which also produces viral and broadcast spots for local companies.
In the 2009 contest, Wechsler introduced a dark comedy called The Rain Stick, but this year opted for something audiences could easily relate to.
So in May, Wechsler gathered some friends and brainstormed a plot for this year’s 24 Hour Film Race, a competition that received more than 350 entries from across North America, Europe and Australia.
Their end result was Pacciu! a three-and-a-half minute mobster action-comedy film that earned him second place overall in the worldwide competition, plus best director and best sound design awards. The New York festival screened the 24 best films, from the U.S. and Canada, including Pacciu!
The film was well received in Chicago, where it screened in mid-May at the Portage Theater, winning the audience award, best director, best actor and best acting ensemble, and a subsequent trip to New York for the competition finals.
This contest year’s theme was identity theft. Filmmakers were instructed to incorporate other elements, as well, including, as in the case of Pacciu!, answering a cell phone and pasta.
Creativity on a deadline
“Identity theft kinds of lends of itself towards crime, so all our ideas were crime-based,” Wechsler says. But his team had no time or budget to buy props.
“I said, ‘What are we going to do, “Pacciu! Pacciu!”?’” he says, mimicking laser-like sounds of a gun firing. “And everyone started laughing, and that was the film.”
So was born the aptly named short, with the actors providing sound effects for an arsenal of weapons, including guns, knives and nunchuks. Introducing more elaborate weapons (and sounds) throughout the film allowed Wechsler to build the concept and keep the audience interested – and in stitches.
Charlie Weisman, co-founder of the film race and its predecessor, NYC Midnight Movie Making, says Pacciu! stood out for its creativity under pressure.
“I think it stood out as original and creative,” he says. “They actually knew what they were doing behind the camera, as well. It’s something people haven’t seen before.”
Weisman says the deadline contributed to the film, including its unique original soundtrack.
“I think it was something that may not have come about without the limitations of the contest,” he says.
Wechsler, who shot Pacciu! using a Canon 5D Mark II and L-series zoom lenses and a skeleton crew of himself, a production assistant and four actors, hopes his recent success can lead to more work in documentaries and narrative film.
“The more I do, the more creative my work gets and the more creative opportunities come my way,” he says.
Next up for Wechsler is the release of a 60-minute documentary about a suburban boy with Tourette’s that will air Sept. 15 on WNET, New York, a co-producer of the project.
Alex Parker is an award-winning Chicago-based journalist whose work has been published by the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Reader and the Huffington Post.
