Somewhat the same situation for our team here in Chicago. We pulled foreign film (ouch) as out genre and spent the first night brainstorming ideas. In the end we had two good acts but bombed out on our middle act which tied the whole thing together. Our issue was getting the permission to shoot at the Chicago public library which was crucial to our story. The issue in 48 hours is once you commit then you're commited and we amost got permission then the buerocracy started, so we finished up our act 2 and tried to tie the story together. All in all we're looking forward to next year and pulling an easier genre.

Foreign? That is a major ouch...

That's one of the things I hate about most short film competitions. How can it be an even playing field if everyone has to make a different movie, and how the heck do you compare one to another fairly?
Anyway...

You are absolutely right - our team was talking about this after this year's 48 Hour. It's very fun to do but you can't really compare the films because they are so different in style, production obstacles etc.

Personally, we had more fun with the DV Challenge than the 48 Hour.

This was the first year in Chicago so we had site requirements as well (you know Chicago landmarks). Our team was fairly large and next year I'll pare the team back to maybe 5 or 6. It's just too short a time to get into a big production which we did because we wanted to deliver the best possible quality. That was a mistake. Instead, we will focus on the story building and be a little more loose with the quality (EXCEPT AUDIO). It seems to me that the comedy or parody genre's always win and frankly we were hoping to pull comedy or parody. Anyway, it was fun.