LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — The Lucky Sevens Film Challenge could soon push seven Las Vegas filmmakers to the limit of their creativity.
Deborah Richards, one of the challengers, has been making films in Las Vegas for decades including "Dark Lights," a short currently making successful rounds on the festival circuit, and "Boy Meets Girl," another short that took home four Emmy Awards.
"I have a very high standard for myself," Richards said.
Like many filmmakers, the coronavirus pandemic temporarily halted Richards' productions even with her indie guerrilla style of filmmaking being more suited to safer filming than larger operations.
"I feel like everyone split into two groups," she said. "Those that kind of did everything on the honey-do list and then those who just kind of like got into bed and stayed there for a couple of months. I was one of those."
Richards continued filming as the pandemic drew on, and she will soon tackle one of the biggest challenges of her long and storied career.
The Lucky Sevens Film Challenge, co-created by Ben Stobber, challenges seven filmmakers to create feature-length films in seven days, with seven crew members, and a budget of just seven thousand dollars.
"Almost like the 48-hour film projects," Stobber said.
Stobber said the idea for the challenge came to his team as a way to bind an industry torn by the coronavirus pandemic back together by creating opportunities and jobs for out-of-work artists.
Once complete, Stobber plans to screen the films at Galaxy Theaters.
"It's such an experience for any filmmaker, for actors, for artists, to see their work and just be able to feel like they're, for even a brief amount of time, to feel like a star," he said.
Richards said she is up to the challenge of creating her first feature-length film, one she has called "Move Me No Mountain," even if some of the parameters seem impossible to meet at first glance.
"The time is terrifying," she said. "I don't quite know if I can do it in seven days, but that's why they call it a challenge, right?"
Other filmmakers include Joe Lujan, Dale Neven, Mike Conway, Tamia Dow, Drew Marvick, and Brenda Daly.
Stobber said he is still recruiting actors to be involved in the productions, and the team is raising fund in an Indiegogo campaign to make the production work.
As of Monday morning, the campaign has raised more than $30,000 of the $49,000 goal.
