The term 'short film' is one which is increasily debated, with their being no consensus over the key charecteristics of a short film. According to wikipedia, it is 'any film not long enough to be considered a feature film', whereas IMDB views it as 'any film less than 45 minutes long'. In addition to this, it is the purpose of the short film, that ultimately distinguishes it from other types of films. One can split the purposes of short films into four main categories being to promote, to communicate a message, to experiement and to reach out to a certain audience.
Firstly, we must look at the promotional nature of short films, yet we should not get confused with what the intention with promotion is, which is more the promotion of the director rather than the film, it is for this reason that mainly students studying film and up and coming directors who venture down this route, with the intention of entering such films in competitions, for
example there is the prominent Virgin Media Shorts film competition, which was won by the film 'Sign Language', which has arguably propelled the director to greener pastures, as it has allowed the film to be shown in over 200 cinemas as well as being given £30 000 and the opportunity to work with the UK film council and Virgin Media. There are also other short film festivals, which have gained global recognition, arguably the most famous
Firstly, we must look at the promotional nature of short films, yet we should not get confused with what the intention with promotion is, which is more the promotion of the director rather than the film, it is for this reason that mainly students studying film and up and coming directors who venture down this route, with the intention of entering such films in competitions, for
example there is the prominent Virgin Media Shorts film competition, which was won by the film 'Sign Language', which has arguably propelled the director to greener pastures, as it has allowed the film to be shown in over 200 cinemas as well as being given £30 000 and the opportunity to work with the UK film council and Virgin Media. There are also other short film festivals, which have gained global recognition, arguably the most famous short film festival in the world is the 'Los Angeles Short Film Festival'. There have also been other routes through self promotion, seen notably with youtube. A key exponent of the utilisation of youtube has best been seen with the Uruguayan director Fede Alvarez, who uploaded his film 'Ataque de Panico' on youtube and recieved 1.5 million views in a short week.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8417789.stm
Lastly, we can also see the relative success in promotion to the extent a successful blockbuster film, Neil Blokamp's 'Alive in Jo'Burg', served as a platform for him getting funding for his film, the academy award nominated 'District 9'
Moving on from this, there is also the purpose of communicating a message. we find that short films usually attempt to convey a message or a point, it is for this reason that we have seen short films shown in schools to be used as an educative tool. A striking example of this is with the short film 'Guilty' by Colin Hutton, which takes the social realism genre of film, with the main themes being youth violence, gun crime and urban problems we see in contemporary society
Moreover, we can also say that another purpose of a short film is to be experimental. Due to its relatively cheap nature with regards to production costs, film makers are able to attempt new techniques which a full length film would not allow the director to engage in such an artistic way, again we can use the example of Fede Alvarez' 'Ataque de Panico' , which was filmed on a budget of £186, and allowed the director to display his talents in 6 minutes.
lastly, one of the principal purposes of a short film is mainly to reach out to a particular audience, which can distinguish as highly different to the audience that we see for cinema. Distribution is varied with short films, we rarely see it in cinema unless its part of a film festival, likes the Cannes Film Festival. However, the distrubition for short films comes mainly through viral distribution, the rise in prominence of video sites such as vimeo and youtube.
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