Two sisters who grew up in Iola and now live on opposite sides of the coast were both recently honored for achievements in the film industry.
Allison and Eileen Chase are the daughters of Bob and Jacki Chase, formerly of Iola who now live in Lawrence. Allison graduated from Iola High School in 2006; Eileen in 2009. Both credit their experiences learning about theatre and the performing arts as students at the Bowlus Fine Arts Center.
Eileen now lives in the Los Angeles area where she is an actor and filmmaker. She was recently named “Woman Filmmaker of the Year” at the 48-Hour Film Project She served as executive producer and acted in the film, “Call for Help,” which was nominated for 10 awards and won four, and took third place for best film.
Eileen Chase
“Call for Help” was entirely written, acted, produced and edited within 48 hours as part of a unique film competition.
Eileen Chase has participated in the Los Angeles 48 Hour Film Project contest for about nine years as an actor and most recently as a team leader and producer. This is the fourth film she has produced; her production company is Triat Films.
Contestants are assigned a character, a prop, a line that must be included, and two randomly assigned genres for a film between 4-7 minutes. Eileen’s movie themes were “superhero” and “disaster.” She was required to include a chef and a mirror, and include the line “Look what I did.”
The film features the staff — chef, butler, maid and groundsman — of a billionaire superhero who is away, attending a charity function. The staff finish the chores and are enjoying their day off when disaster strikes. Will they step up to save the day?
It’s a hilarious romp that clocks in under 7 minutes, and looks as if it took months to make rather than just two days.
“This year was the best team I’ve had and the smoothest experience,” she said. “The biggest success this year came in the writing. My goal was to create something that told a good story, was really easy to shoot and showcases the characters.”
Eileen collected a group of four — herself, her boyfriend, a co-writer and the director — to brainstorm story ideas and come up with a script on a Friday night. The acting and filming crew took just six hours to shoot the film Saturday before it was turned over to an editor and composer Sunday morning.
Judges took a bit more time to consider the 174 entries. Some films were disqualified because they were submitted too late or failed to include required elements. Eileen said special care is needed to make sure something essential isn’t cut during the editing process.
JUST 32 of the films were selected about a month later for an awards ceremony where all of the films were screened. Eileen didn’t know which nominations her film received until the ceremony.
“There are a lot of really good films so I wasn’t expecting to win anything. I thought we had the best chance to win ensemble acting. I definitely wasn’t expecting to win best writing,” she said. “I was sitting next to my writing partner when they announced the nomination and we fist-bumped like, ‘We’ll take that. That’s awesome.’ Then they announced we won.”
The film also won Best Ensemble Acting and Best Use of Genre. “Call for Help” took third place for Best Film.
