Short and sweet: The illustrious history of the short film

mar

20

Short and sweet: The illustrious history of the short film

After sitting through the latest three-hour blockbuster, it’s hard to believe that in the early days all films were short. Everything from newsreels and comedies to serialised dramas and adventure stories. In the USA, superstars like Charlie Chaplin, Bing Crosby, Buster Keaton and Laurel and Hardy rocked the one- and two-reel film world with flicks like Chaplin’s Mabel’s Strange Predicament.

Short changed

As the movie industry expanded, though, and talkies and colour films hit the big-screen, so-called feature-length film became the main event and short films were relegated to the opening act. In Britain, these tended to be educational flicks, like the Green Cross Code campaign—informative, but hardly fun. By the 1980s, the film industry was driven by blockbuster movies and profit margins, and, commercially speaking, short films weren’t anyone’s priority.

Festive fun

Sound bleak? Not really. With the commercial imperative removed, short films quickly became incubators for film-making talent. Lower costs and shorter schedules meant that directors and producers could use the short format to experiment in ways that the cautious studio bosses discouraged in feature films. And because shorts tend to be shown at film festivals where the audiences are actively seeking out innovation, where better for a film-maker to road-test their skills?

Small films. Big prizes

Some kick-ass short films that have wowed the festival circuit include Peter Capaldi’s Franz Kafka’s It’s A Wonderful Life (1994), starring Richard E. Grant, Bobby Peers’ Sniffer (2006), which picked up the Palme D’Or for short films at Cannes, and João Salaviza’s Rafa (2012), winner of the Golden Bear (short film) at the Berlin International Film Festival. Niche festivals like the London Short Film Festival, Tropfest, and the long-running International Short Film Festival in Clermont-Ferrand, France cater exclusively for shorts, and companies like Future Shorts work with film-makers to distribute short on- and off-line. Future Shorts also run a pop-up festival to develop a global screening network for short films.

TV times

On TV, too, short films are on the up: music videos and narrative adverts often have massive budgets, at least compared to the indie movie-makers; the production values for these shorts are high, and the audience reach is immense. Directors and actors often work across feature films, TV adverts and music videos— check out Wes Anderson’s Amex ad, My Life, My Card (2006), David Fincher’s Mechanical Legs (2002) for Adidas, or Ridley Scott’s 1984, advertising the brand new Apple Macintosh was back in, yes, 1984.

The smart option

And there’s more: huge shifts in film distribution options have changed how we make and think about short films. We’re talking about the internet, of course: not only can any budding Spielberg or Kurosawa shoot movies on full-spec HD smartphone video cameras like Nokia’s Lumia 920, but they can upload them to services like Vimeo and YouTube and use the power of social media to reel in an audience bigger than they’d get at any film festival.

Bite sized art

Social media and mobile viewing are also making short format films and programmes increasingly popular, especially in Japan, where dramas and soaps are serialised in bite-sized chunks designed to be watching on the go, on mobile phones and tablets. All of which means that short films, far from being a dying art, are still the place where film adventure begins.

To see for yourself, why not throw your hat into the ring for the Nokia Music Short Film Competition, launched in association with Sundance London. The aim is to have filmmakers showcase the amazing, unusual and unknown music scenes in their cities.

Filmmakers need to simply upload a short 15 to 60 secs video trailer by March 21^st visualizing the underground music scene in their chosen city. If their idea is picked, they’ll receive Nokia Lumia 920s and a $5,000 budget to shoot their film, plus a guaranteed a special screening at the Sundance London Film & Music Festival (2013) in April.

Think you’ve got what it takes? We look forward to being dazzled.

Image credits: Feral78 + VancouverFilmSchool

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mar

20