“What Makes A Great Short Film?”
Short Film
I am currently producing and directing my first short film. Consequently, this has led me to ask myself a very important question. “What makes a great short film?”
We live in a society where people nolonger have patience. It seems that everyone nowadays is diagnosed with some form of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). Thus, it seems natural that short films will continue to rise in popularity. They are a quick fix to entertainment.
Prior to answering what makes a great short film, we must first answer the question, what is a short film? Film Festivals categorise short films according to different criteria. The acclaimed Sundance film festival considers any film less than 60 minutes to be a short film. The Cannes film festival insists that a short film must be less than 15 minutes including titles.
However, the above does not answer the question “What makes a successful short film?”. One of the most important components of a short film (or any film), is the first step, “the story”. ” But of course it all comes down to one thing in the end–story. Many critics site the “story/script” as the main issue with many short films. The script is the very first element in a project. The difficulty in short films is to produce a script which has a beginning, middle and end with well rounded characters that the audience will feel attachment to. The scripting must also ensure there are no loose ends.
As short films are often made as industry “calling cards” certain aesthetic values may try to be achieved. “Glossy lighting, heavily produced sound, Steadicam shots and big casts are trademarks of mainstream feature films and, therefore, many filmmakers — particularly those looking to craft industry calling cards — strive for these values in their shorts”. Attempting to re-produce the look and feel of big budget films may increase a person’s chance of being viewed at an acclaimed short film festival.
However, some short films are not “calling cards”. The director and producer have simply tried to create an alternate art form. Such short films make it to festivals and are included for their “artsy” and new approach.
As briefly mentioned above one of the main reasons short films are made is to act as
“calling cards/resumes”. “It is difficult to convince funders at the feature film level to take a punt on a director without what is regarded in this currently auteur-driven industry as a “calling-card”…”. One would find it difficult to receive a job with no resume or example of work. A short film gives young filmmakers a piece of work they might be able to use to procure future work.
While continuing to research what makes a good short film, I discovered five reasons the BBC lists as why to make a short film:
“1) Experience - you might want to experiment with pulling a team together to make a story on film.
2) A showreel - you might be pursuing a career in filmmaking and want to demonstrate your skills.
3) Partnerships - you’d like to try working with certain people to see if you can go on to collaborate on projects in the future.
4) Kudos - you may have found a high profile director/writer/actor, who’ll help you raise your filmmaking profile.
5)Testing an idea out - you’ve always thought a certain story would work well on screen or you’ve got a feature film idea that you want to try out on a small scale first” (BBC Reference)
Consequently, what becomes most apparent when researching what makes a good short film, is that there is no set answer. Most of the research associated with short films is why people make them.
I assume the reason there is not a great deal of answers on what makes a good short film is because every person’s taste is different.
