"Lucky Day" will be premiering at Kick Ass Film Fest 2026!
- Marshall Pampkin
- Mar 21
- 4 min read
It was only last year I questioned whether I would ever enter a film fest, let alone a 72-Hour Film Challenge. Now, my team and I are getting ready for our first film fest premier! Oddly enough, we started this challenge barely 1-week after wrapping production on a film for a different festival that allowed weeks for filming, but the 72-hour seemed to come together more smoothly.
For the "uninitiated", a 72-hr film challenge is just what it may sound like: a filmmaker/team has 72 hours to write, shoot, edit, and submit a short film. Generally, there are no pre-written scripts or outlines; no preproduction stage with casting or camera & lighting tests; just show-up, receive your prompt, then go make some movie magic. You're informed and advised by the organizers and your fellow-filmmakers/competitors to assemble a team (if desired), scout a few locations, and identify & consolidate your available assets to the best of your ability ahead of time. Once the clock starts, every moment counts! Like many festival organizers, Kick Ass Film Fest organizes periodic meet & greets for filmmakers, cast, and crew. Thankfully, my wife made sure that my nerves & forgetfulness didn't keep me from attending at least one of these networking events ahead of time.
On the evening of December 6th, 2025 my wife I stood in the parking lot of Red Leg Brewing Company...me, nervously puffing on a cigarette...she, reassuring me as tries to stiffle a bemused-chuckle at seeing me so nervous. After locating the section for the filmmaker networking event, we went and got drinks, then began to settle-in. Now, despite my reputation for being something of a "social butterfly", I am typically apprehensive walking into an unfamiliar room/crowd. Two things helped me to smooth this over:
1) I soon learned that a significant number of filmmakers in the room that night were also first-time competitors
...and...
2) My wife & I saw an actor that we'd just worked with several weeks earlier as P.A.'s for Lucky Stars Film during a 48-hour challenge. He seemed grateful to lock-in with a familiar face as well. Then, from there, we'd started to mingle.
Now, Kick Ass Film Fest includes competitors registering as teams and as solo filmmakers. Though I'd initially intended to register "solo", I knew that I'd wanted to build a team that will (hopefully) grow & endure. From my early days as a spoken word artist, I typically prefer to have some form or fashion of a "collective of creative collaborators", even if we weren't functioning a literal, cohesive "team"...we were still feeding & bouncing off of each other.
Not only do I thrive in those "close-but-loosely-knit" environments, but I also was in search of like-minded individuals with whom I could build, grow, and share some of the load. Oh, man...did we luck out! I was expecting to meet maybe one or two potential teammates...maybe! By the end of the formal portion of the evening, the team was already taking shape. Bring in my Producer, Chet...a few friends from The Over-Prepared Open Mic at Jives Coffee Lounge...and my filmmaking protege, Rachel...and "Team: Outlaw Poets" was ready to groove.
During the meet & greet, we'd all also been pitched an opportunity to enter Film Score Fest's first-ever Denver event. Registration was free for all filmmakers, so I jumped on that one too; deciding that the event's timing would make it a good test-run prior to Kick Ass. Then, fast-forward to late-February and we wrapped production on the Film Score project just in time for the 72-hour challenge. At this point I am second-guessing myself to no end. The Film Score Fest project ran way over schedule, but proved to be the sort of dry run that I was hoping for. Taking stock of it all, I took a philosophical "musing" that I've shared with a number of my creative peers and turned it on myself: "So the path you walk has taken you straight into the fire. You can't help that sometimes. Nevertheless it is up to whether these flames are a 'furnace'...or a 'forge!' Your attitude & mindset are your greatest assets here but, in the end, you've got to decide what you will make of it. 'Furnace' or 'forge', what's it gonna be?"...glad I stuck to my guns here! Scheduling concerns meant that I had to resposition a few key team members. Notably moving Hayden to DP and Alicia to Writer, both having been my Editing team for Film Score, while I took over editing as well as sitting in the Director's chair.
The 72-hour challenge for Kick Ass Film Fest 2026 began with a conference call on Zoom with all of the Team Leaders and the festival organizers. We got a solid brief on what's expected and plenty genuine encouragement. We were given a character, prop, and line of dialogue that had to be used, and then each team was assigned a genre for their respective
film. The clock started at the close of the call. My writer, Alicia, went straight to work on the story. Once the initial draft was done, she & my wife began fleshing out some details while I stayed on Zoom to listen in on the post-call Q&A. After that I read the story, we crossed our "t's" and dotted our "i's" and found ourselves pleasantly surprised that we were at script-lock already. I was sure that writing would've taken all day, so I told the team not to worry about Friday (Day-01), but to be prepared to shoot all day & night, if needed.
How did it all turn out? Well, we started late; as delays began to stack, schedules conflicted; last-minute crew members were "drafted" while shots & sequences were reorganized, consolidated, and/or expanded, and some how we still wrapped shooting by 5pm that same day. If you want to know about the story we told, Then I hope that you'll watch the film. As for the all of the production-BTS details, maybe I'll address that in another blog entry. Let me know in the comments if you would like to hear about all of that. Now I've got to turn my attention back to the Film Score Fest-Denver film. I hope to see you at the Group B screening for the Kick Ass Film Fest 2026 Premier event. Until next time...Keep writing; keep sharing; keep listening; keep learning!
~ Northstar.
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