Elyria native tackles short film in a short time

ELYRIA — Some people excel when working under pressure. Elyria native DeJonna Williams is one of them, producing a film in just 48 hours for the 48 Hour Film Project competition. The 2007 Elyria High School graduate has been participating in the 48 Hour Film Project for the past five years and winning with Conrad Studios, but this is her first time executive producing and working as team leader all on her own. With a degree in business from Independence University, the former child actor started doing background work in films in 2013. In 2016, she met her friend, Conrad Faraj, of Conrad Studios, and began working with him. "The majority of my projects have been made with him," she said. "Whatever he needed, behind the scenes, production assistant, production manager — I learned along the way." Since then, she has produced 22 films and has worked on music videos and commercials as well. Her first time competing in the 48 Hour Film Project was in 2018 with Conrad Studios. The team won that year, as well as in 2019 and 2020. After taking some time away from the competition, Williams joined with Conrad Studios earlier this year for the Pittsburgh competition, competing against 52 other teams, and won. She will be traveling to Lisbon, Portugal, in March for the Filmapalooza 2024 International Film Festival, where that film could be selected to play at the Cannes Film Festival in France. But she didn't stop there. Earlier this month, Williams, along with her team Reel Deal Films, competed in Cleveland's 48 Hour Film Project, filming inside homes and on roads around Elyria and in a park in Westlake. Here's how the project works: On Friday night, the film teams randomly draw two genres. They are able to use one or both for the competition. Then, they are given three elements that must be used in the film: a character, a prop and a line. From there, they scramble to write a script, bring in actors, secure locations and do everything else necessary to create a film. All within 48 hours. "We finished the script at 4 a.m. Saturday and had a 6 a.m. call time," Williams said. "We already had the crew together and edited as we filmed. The sound was close to a rough draft by the time we finished filming. By Sunday at 4:09 p.m., we were done." The film must be longer than four minutes, but a maximum of seven minutes. "Our story follows an appliance repairman," Williams said. "We see him go out to clean up all of these murders happening and it appears he's the one committing the murders. You find out at the end if it's true." The genres selected by Williams' team were horror and climate. Given the murders, it's easy to see they went with horror, but they slid in some climate elements as it started to rain during filming. The required character was appliance repair person Dylan or Diane Bobslaw — they went with Dylan. The prop was an orange traffic cone. And the line was, "Hold on, let me ask you something." Williams, who is executive producer on the team and team leader, handled 41 people on the team. "One thing I've learned from doing these is the judges look for a complete story and how well you use the elements they give you all of the way through," Williams said. "On the tech side, they look for a good edit and sound." All 34 teams competing in the Cleveland competition will have a chance to view their competitors' films at a premiere this week. After the premiere, judges will review the films and release nominations in categories such as Best Make-Up, Best Hair, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Film. An awards show will be held Aug. 9 and the winner in the Best Film category has the opportunity to go to Lisbon in March for Filmapalooza. At the International level, all of the films are reviewed with the top films selected going to the Cannes Film Festival in France. "It's always rewarding to see how people react to your film for the first time," Williams said. "Cleveland has a great film community and there is a huge online community all throughout Ohio. I'm excited to be going to Lisbon for the project we completed in Pittsburgh and I just hope we can go there for the project we made in Cleveland." Contact Christina Jolliffe at ctnews@chroniclet.com.