Short films are for kids?

J.R. Hudson said:
"Short films, to me, are something you do in school to develop your reel or something you do for bits and giggles once you're a successful filmmaker"

Those silly Oscars they give for short films. Silly.
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?

I've already said there are a lot of short films that are better than some features. Not sure how this adds to the conversation as to whether or not short films are economically viable. Whether or not something is good doesn't really matter in business. The only thing that matters is whether or not that good can be sold.

But again, as a soley artistic endevour or for purposes of developing your skillset and/or possibly even in the interest of being hired to do a job for someone or some company, stand-alone (non-feature film compressed) short films hold credence.
 
Brian_Rice said:
?

I've already said there are a lot of short films that are better than some features. Not sure how this adds to the conversation as to whether or not short films are economically viable. Whether or not something is good doesn't really matter in business. The only thing that matters is whether or not that good can be sold.
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Yep, this is where the confusion lies. Some people are thinking of the business side of whether it will sell (like you were in the post I quoted) and others are thinking about the creative side only without thinking about selling the piece (like I was)

btw, I didn't mean to misquote or cherry pick your post from the other thread brother, I just took a small bit bit from it that I thought had the gist of your message in it. If I posted the whole thing no one would've read the thread because it would have been too long from the get go


edit: I added your whole post in the first post so people don't get confused
 
J.R. Hudson said:
Those silly Oscars they give for short films. Silly.
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No, saying that is silly.
They may be hard to market, difficult to find an audience or venue for, or tricky to sell, but they're not silly.

If narrative features are novels (minus lots of exposition and character development), then shorts are short stories.

And short stories aren't silly, they're... short (sometimes screenplays are based on adapted short stories, since books, ie novels, are too long for a 90 minute film).

ShortsHD, is on U-verse channel 1789.

And if you're feeling extremely short:
Very short films are sometimes considered as a category of their own. The International Festival of Very Shorts is a festival based in Paris which shows only films less than three minutes long. Filminute, the international one-minute film festival, has presented and promoted a collection of one-minute films across multiple media since September 2006.
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I have this whole weird theory about "shorts". They are the way to get experience, and, if they are done right, make a name for yourself.

Too many people "poo-poo" shorts (okay, that doesn't sound right), but you get what I am saying. But most of them either have no experience and have illusions of grandeur, or have lots of experience and have forgotten what it took to get where they are today.

The first example is worst in my book. They try to convince you doing a short is a waste of time, while telling you they are going straight into doing a feature.

Do a few shorts first, start learning firsthand about issues and bugs. Then, when you have a good feel for filming, you will have a better idea of what to expect when you compound the issue with complexity and time.
 
Another way to make shorts viable would be "Famous X Presents" or the Four Rooms approach. With the Four Rooms thing you have to make an effort to tie the stories together somewhat, and you need a budget, so you might as well make a feature. It'd be lot easier to put together a collection of quality shorts and use your name to market the DVD. If Tarentino or Fincher or the Coens put out a collection like this, I know I'd pick it up. It'd have to be a straight buy-out for the filmmakers though. No one is currently soliciting shorts for this purpose, but hey. Now that I've put it out there...

Shorts are also great extra content for feature films on disc. I love the Pixar shorts they include with their features, for instance; I wish more people would do that. I wish theaters would start showing short content before the features again, so maybe I can be entertained instead of suffering through inane quiz shows and horribly produced local commercials. And trailers I've already seen online.
 
Justin Kuhn said:
With the Four Rooms thing you have to make an effort to tie the stories together somewhat, and you need a budget, so you might as well make a feature. It'd be lot easier to put together a collection of quality shorts and use your name to market the DVD. If Tarentino or Fincher or the Coens put out a collection like this, I know I'd pick it up. It'd have to be a straight buy-out for the filmmakers though. No one is currently soliciting shorts for this purpose, but hey. Now that I've put it out there...
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Not sure if this is similar to Four Rooms (and it's definitely not the same as a freestanding short), but Paris, Je T'aime comes to mind (a collection of shorts based on the theme of the city of Paris as a character):
Paris, Je t'aime (Paris, I love you) is a 2006 film starring an ensemble cast of actors of various nationalities. The two-hour film consists of eighteen short films set in different arrondissements (neighborhoods). The 22 directors include Gurinder Chadha, Sylvain Chomet, Joel and Ethan Coen, Gérard Depardieu, Wes Craven, Alfonso Cuarón, Nobuhiro Suwa, Alexander Payne, Tom Tykwer, Walter Salles and Gus Van Sant.
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Twilight Zone: The Movie was a collection of shorts, as was Lumière and Company
Lumière and Company is a collection of the interesting, although scattered, results of an inspired project. To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Lumiere Brothers' first motion picture, 40 directors from around the world are each allowed to shoot a short film using their original hand-cranked model.
The participants have to follow three rules: 1. The film is 52 seconds. 2. No synchronous sound (most use musical scoring or dub in foley sound, and many are silent) and 3. They have to get it within three takes.
Some of them set up elaborate sequences (Gabriel Axel, Jerry Schatzberg, Peter Greenaway), some are intentionally minimal (Wim Wenders, Regis Wargnier, Andrei Konchalovsky) or simple and symbolic (Arthur Penn, Abbas Kiarostami, Francis Girod, Cedric Klapisch) and a large number turn the camera on itself (Liv Ullmann, John Boorman, Claude Lelouch, Gaston Kabore, Youseel Chahine, Helma Sanders).
David Lynch is one of the few directors who rises to the challenge with an exceptionally creative effort, and his is easily the most impressive of the bunch.
I'm sure it was an honor for them to be approached for the project, but the entries of Spike Lee, Nadine Trintignant, Lasse Hallstrom, and Merchant Ivory are quite unimaginative and forgettable.
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Again, projects that were conceived around collections of shorts, based on a theme.
But they seem to be a way around the difficulties of marketing/releasing shorts.

Found this list of 15 Great Short Films (all embedded on Youtube) I'll be watching them tonight:
http://listverse.com/2008/09/06/15-great-short-films/
Over the last century, cinema has played an increasingly important role in popular culture, combining visual media, soundtrack, and dialogue to mix together three of the biggest components of art: visual art, music and prose.
However, with all the attention given to feature length films, short film is often overlooked.
These tiny little gems tell marvelous stories in a distinctly short time, making them the visual equivalent of a good short story, a small morsel that can really be viewed and appreciated without devoting hours of your time. This is by no means the best in short film, because it is possibly even more subjective than feature-length film appreciation, but these 15 shorts are all worth a look. WARNING: Some offensive language, adult themes and mild nudity follow
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Justin Kuhn said:
Another way to make shorts viable would be "Famous X Presents" or the Four Rooms approach. With the Four Rooms thing you have to make an effort to tie the stories together somewhat, and you need a budget, so you might as well make a feature. It'd be lot easier to put together a collection of quality shorts and use your name to market the DVD. If Tarentino or Fincher or the Coens put out a collection like this, I know I'd pick it up. It'd have to be a straight buy-out for the filmmakers though. No one is currently soliciting shorts for this purpose, but hey. Now that I've put it out there...

Shorts are also great extra content for feature films on disc. I love the Pixar shorts they include with their features, for instance; I wish more people would do that. I wish theaters would start showing short content before the features again, so maybe I can be entertained instead of suffering through inane quiz shows and horribly produced local commercials. And trailers I've already seen online.
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This brings up another interesting idea. I wonder if people who've done various, say, zombie short films would ever choose to pool their collective shorts into one creative effort, doing re-grades on color, etc -- then possibly using a few actors from the different collected shorts to show a final short film to tie it all together?

I think creator-owned short films can be economically viable, but it's certainly a challenge.
 
I love shorts. Wouldn't it be awesome if you could head to the movie theater and settle in for a couple of shorts or make it quick and just hit one. Don't theaters make their money at the concession stand? More people in the door means more concession sales, even if a single short had a cheaper admission price.
 
They used to show serials and animated shorts all the time before movies. They still do with some of the Pixar stuff.

Not sure why theatres stopped doing it. I'd rather watch Bugs Bunny than see a bunch of crappy commercials.
 
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