This year I'm going to be making a short film, so I probably need to know what a short film is.
History of the Short
In the early days of film making (1910s) short films were often shown with the feature film. These were often animation cartoons or live actions short films. With technological advancements like sound recording and technicolour, films could be developed to make an entire feature film like Becky Sharp (1935). However, today short films are still a popular choice for film makers. They can be a lot less expensive than making a full feature film – this makes it a popular medium for amateurs and students. However, it is difficult to define the conventions now for short films because, other than the time limit of footage, there is such a huge variety of films that fall into this category.
Up 40 mins?
A feature film, such as Lord of the Rings (201 mins), that most people will watch on the T.V. or the cinema doesn't count as a short film. The Academy of Motion Pictures say that a short film is 40 minutes maximum. Most short films are below this time, especially on Youtube where a lot of the short films made by people like me are uploaded, and called Shorts in the media industry. A lot of short films are aimed at the Aficionado and film buff part of the film audience as they often contain topics that the mainstream audience don't look for in a film. But there is still a market for mainstream Shorts.
Me, myself and Short
I will be making a Short this year and am going to aim for it being 5 minutes and the best that I can do.
To make this as good as I can I'm going to look at lots of different shorts and analyse them to get a better understanding of how a Short works, such as plots, characters and script.
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