Short Films

Codes and Conventions of: Short Films

 

Short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature Film. The 'Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' defines a short film as:-

"An original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all credits".

 

ShortsTV was the first television channel dedicated to short films.

 

Shorts International and Magnolia Pictures organize an annual release of Academy Award nominated short films in theatres across the US, UK, Canada and Mexico.

 

Shorts are occasionally broadcast as filler when a feature film or other work doesn't fit the standard broadcast schedule, for example, a few animated shorts continue within mainstream commercial distribution, i.e. Pixar in associated with Disney have screened a short film along each of its feature films during its theatrical run since 1995 (producing shorts permanently since 2001).

 

However, short films generally rely on festival exhibition to reach an audience. Such movies can also be distributed via the Internet, i.e. sites such as YouTube and Vimeo have attracted large communities of artists and viewers.

 

Short film making is growing in popularity as equipment becomes cheaper and more amateurs are making movies (due to semi-professional cameras of low cost,cheap software for editing, production and DVD authorising.

Short films can span from animations, comedies to dramas and crime pieces. Here are a few examples of famous Short Films:-

 

Scene from Short Film entitled 'Glassjaw'. About an injured sportsman trying to work his way back into boxing (starring Emmett Scanlan).

Here is a well renowned Short film, entitled, 'Mebollix' which i found on youtube. It is an Irish Comedy directed by two time IFTA-winner Simon Gibney (Podge and Rodge, Bronx Bunny) and is winner of the HDFEST Deffie Award for Best Comedic HD Short Film (also stars upcoming irish actor, Emmet Scanlan).