Huntington Music and Arts Festival partnered with Brainwrap Productions and Arts Resources for the Tri-State to host a 72-hour film challenge that was presented Wednesday, Aug. 31 at the ARTS Renaissance Center in Huntington.

Film production teams had from Thursday to Sunday to create a short film using only a phrase. After an action verb and a noun was drawn, teams had to create a movie that was less than seven minutes long relating to those words.

Fourteen short films were created with the word combinations, which included exposed lovers, defend hammer, attempt darkness, mediate alien, lose tennis shoe, kill lipstick, solve ditch, construct anime, destroy high ground, nurture steering wheel, forgot belly, challenge fence, deliver necklace and repair river. Director of film studies at Marshall University, Walter Squire, gave awards to the special mentioned and to the first and second place winners.

The special mentioned award went to “Attempting Darkness Twice,” which had the words attempt darkness, and was produced with toy Legos. In second place was “Sick,” which had the words nurture steering wheel, and was about a man caring for his car after a loved one passed. In first place was “River Dolphin,” which had the words repair river, and was about a person seeing a dolphin in the Ohio River.

“It was very short, but really funny,” Nora Decker, an audience member, said about the first place winner. “It was creative, spontaneous, and really cute.”

“I get really excited. Excited to see the work that people are doing and lots of young film makers,” Squire said. “Other people have been making stuff and putting it on YouTube, but it’s different when having a group of people watching it. People can talk to them and they can find out people’s reaction. You can read people’s comments on YouTube, but it’s different.”

This was the first year that the Huntington Music and Arts Festival has done an event like this. Squire said he hopes that it will continue.

“This seemed to be a big hit,” Squire said. “There was a big draw both in terms of how many people committed and competed and it was a good turnout.”

Krislyn Holden can be contacted at [email protected].