What is a Short Film?

A short film is described as “an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all credits" by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). Short films were initially shown alongside that of a main feature, along with other content such as a newsreel. They were originally popular as cartoons and comedies. By the 1950's they had mostly left commercial cinema release due to the rise of television, leaving cartoon shorts until the 1980s.

Since it is difficult to gain a full feature-level narrative in under 40 minutes, stories are often brief or small in scale. A popular narrative technique is to use a “snapshot” story – a segment in someone's life in real time. Another method is to make use of montaging to show only key events to tell the narrative. Often a short film will leave its narrative open by the ending, so as to involve the audience more and solve the issue of a limited time to tell a full narrative.

A short film will often be more explorative with its themes than that of a feature-length– since there is less concern over target audience, a director will often create a short film for a more specific issue or theme. For example, the British Heart Foundation created a two-minute short film addressing heart attacks in order to raise health awareness. Short films are popular with animators, mainly because of the effort needed to animate a short film is considerably less than that for a feature film. As a result an animated short will often be part of a larger series if created by a studio. A good example is Looney Tunes, who produced a great number of animated shorts for theatrical release before moving to other media. In terms of genre, short films usually don't stray too far from traditional genres. When they do, they often do so for experimental purposes. Again, short film producers are generally less restricted by publishers and distributors to adhere to guidelines. In terms of production value (ie. Editing, titles, cinematography etc.) short films usually have a considerably smaller budget than a feature film, and as such these aspects are usually kept simple and practical, so as to avoid over-budgeting the short film. Titles are often kept simplistic and minimal.

A short film's purpose is often varied. Originally, they were used as a compliment to the main attraction, in order to create a “variety performance”-type showing. Nowadays, short films are usually made for several reasons. First, the director may be new in the business and so would want to create a short film in order to showcase his work and ability to major publishers. Directors such as Spike Jonze were able to break into the industry through short film. Another way that short films are used is for advertising – companies who want to sell a particularly important product (such as this Samsung commercial for a 21-inch-wide television) help to sell their product in a more cinematic way than normal commercials would allow. Similarly, some music videos are made as short films, in particular those of Chris Cunningham who works heavily in music video shorts (His work is also highly experimental, as short films allow him to be). Finally, short films may me used as proof-of-concept for bigger works. A director may use short film to test an idea out before pitching it to a producer, especially since this could help attract the producer further towards the concept. A good example of this is Neil Blomkamp's short film “Alive in Jo'Burg” (shown below) which was later created into the feature District 9.

 A short film generally attracts a more niche audience compared to feature films. Students of film are the most likely to watch these, due to research or general interest in seeing how other directors work. Another group is film enthusiasts, who may watch a short film that has been recommended or given good reviews. Short films also appear at film festivals like Sundance, so another place to see a locally-made, low-exposure short film would be by visiting a local festival. Often festivals also have awards, which is another good way for short film makers to break into the industry. Finally, the growth of the internet has created a periphery demographic for short films, which are easier to access and watch with sites such as Vimeo. One such director who was able to do this was animator David O'Reilly, who uses a lot of internet-based cultural references in his films and so gained a small following on the internet as well as at festivals. Occasionally, a large studio will release a short film alongside a feature-length presentation so as to gain a wider audience for their work. This is a tactic often employed by Pixar, who create unrelated short films for every film they release to show before the actual film.