best length for a short?

Steve Laramie

Steve Laramie

Veteran
What is the best length for a short film. Havnt started writing yet just want to plan ahead. I would guess anywhere between 10-20 minutes. Iv heard people give specific times that were the best for submitting ect.
 
Less than 10 minutes if you want any producer to bother watching it. Of course if it's 15 minutes and goes on to win a bunch of festivals, that's different. But in general less than 10 is the best, you'll get this advice from almost anyone. But indie filmmakers love to make long shorts.
 
festival programmers have told me on more than one occasion that films under ten minutes have a huge advantage, very easy to slip into their program compared to a 30 minute short. also, studies have been done on youtube viewing habits. viewers are much more likely to watch a video under 4 minutes, and more likely to stop watching when they see the running time is over 4. whether or not you want to pander to the youtube audience is a separate issue, but it's info worth having.
 
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Yeah, Zak is right. Although I'm not sure if I'd pander to the YouTube viewers necessarily. I mean YouTube is kind of a beast all its own. But it depends what you're going for.
 
never cut a movie around somebody's attention span.
We learn in video 101 the adult attention span caps at 6 minutes. Lots of fine films lasting longer than 6 minutes, I see this as a fine rule to discard.
If done right, a movie is not a demo reel.
 
i actually run a fairly successful short film festival (movie maker magazine said it was one of the top 25 film festivals this year).

My advice is not to worry about length and just try to get the content crisp as possible. I've never met a programmer or fest head that wouldn't accept a short that they loved because of time. Even Sundance, the alpah fest for shorts, usually puts a larger 30 minute short to "finale" each shorts program.

Having a film that feels long is totally different than having a film that runs long.

Some of my personal favorite shorts are 30+ and some are under 5 minutes. And remember endgame for short films is the internet / not theatrical ... so the run time really doesn't factor into a distributors mind as to time.
 
Feeling long and running long are too very different things. There is a nothing worse then a 2 minute short that feels like an hour. To be honest even some of the twilightfest entries which are all 6 min or less, feel like they go on and on and on and on. You need to have the content to back it up, you need to leave your audience completely satisfied or wanting more. Some people can do this in 30 seconds others can take on a ride that lasts 30+ minutes and at the end you wonder where the time went.

CONTENT CONTENT CONTENT.

For the record if I followed my own advice.... I would be in a much better spot.
 
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