Eighteen teams spent Friday night talking about ways to kill Jose de Lugo.

Jose wasn’t in any real trouble. He was a made-up character who was part of the Two Day Film Challenge this weekend.

Teams competed for a $1,000 top prize and various lesser prizes.

The challenge began at 7 p.m. in the Mass Media and Technology Hall auditorium. Teams met there to get the five variables required in their film: genre, prop, dialogue, character and location. The variables were drawn randomly.

The results forced teams to make a horror film based in outer space. One character needed to be Jose de Lugo, an illegal immigrant. The prop was a full-size Vietnam-era F-4 Phantom. The dialogue was, “At long last … at the very end … have you no sense of decency?”

The variables didn’t have to be key components in the films, but judging is partly based on how well the variables tie in with the overall film, said Steve White, journalism and broadcasting professor and co-founder of the Two Day Film Challenge.

One of the teams was “Ante Up Esau,” started by Joel McAfee, an alumnus from Greenwood, Ark. McAfee said his team won second place overall and the audience award last year.

This year, he formed a team by joining with “Lil’ Dragon Entertainment,” a production team started by Nashville resident Gabe McCauley that enters various other 48-hour film challenges. McCauley said his team has won the audience award in five out of nine contests. McCauley’s films are available at www.gabemccauley.com.

8 p.m. Friday.

Ante Up Esau went to a member’s home on Park Street and began planning a script almost immediately.

Eight people sat around Bowling Green residents Dave and Rose McGee’s living room and pitched ideas. Dave McGee is an alumnus.

Members trickled in and out throughout the night.

The first major decision was to incorporate comedy into the script.

Originally, McCauley wanted to start out seriously, then end with over-the-top comedy, but he considered a straight horror ending as well.

“It’s hard to get people to scream,” McCauley said. “We could start out funny, and end up with something jacked, but it’s harder to pull off.”

Team members finished planning nine hours after they began, at about 5 a.m.

8 a.m. Saturday.

McAfee woke up early and began planning the day.

Team members started shooting at about 11 a.m., which was a little later than they had wanted to start. By 12:30 p.m., they had finished shooting several opening scenes before changing locations.

1 p.m. Saturday

Angie Campbell, a senior from Athens, Ala., bounced down the stairs wearing a green dress, gold shoes, multi-colored fairy wings adorned with glitter and a curly bleach-blond wig. She looked up toward McAfee and McCauley when she reached the bottom of the stairs.

“Do it again, but be cuter about it!” McCauley said with a smirk.

It took the crew about 30 minutes to record 30 seconds of footage.

3:30 p.m. Saturday

Group members met at a house where most of the shooting took place. They went over last minute changes to the script.

“OK, we need to start moving,” McAfee said at 4:06 p.m.

It was another 40 minutes before they began shooting. They finished 10 takes in seven minutes, but didn’t wrap up filming until midnight.

From 7 p.m. Saturday until about 6:30 p.m, the crew edited.

6 p.m. Sunday

Two teams sat in Mass Media third-floor labs and frantically tried to finish editing their films.

“It’s crunch time,” said Darius Barati, a Team Mushy Minus Matt member. “We should get it done, but it’s going to be tough.”

Fistful of Films team member Wil Pedigo said members had been working all 48 hours.

6:50 p.m. Sunday

Five teams had turned in their tapes.

“It’s pretty sparse up here …” White said.

By 6:57 p.m. six more teams had turned in the necessary paperwork and tapes, but seven teams were still missing.

Three teams arrived after 6:57 p.m. Two teams sprinted full speed to the front of the auditorium to get their tapes on the front desk – one person hurdling over the auditorium chairs.

Ante Up Esau strolled in at about 6:58 p.m. and casually finished paperwork. McAfee walked the tape up to the desk with about 20 seconds to spare.

McGee said such contests always run close on time.

“We go down to the last possible second,” McGee said. “If you’re lucky enough to finish early, then you watch it and try to find imperfections.”

Four groups were unable to finish their tapes in time.

The winners will be announced during the two-hour premiere on Thursday in the Mass Media auditorium.

The top 10 videos will be shown, and there are a lot of giveaways, White said.

Reach Chris Byrne at news@chherald.com.