Short Film Conventions

Short Film conventions are often very common, two of the most prominent being simplicity and open endings, the films are too short to fit in a complex plot and a 3 part story so just a couple of locations, one or two scenes and an ending that leaves your audience guessing, questioning and wanting more will suffice greatly.

A consensus has emerged in the industry suggesting that a short film is never longer than 40 minutes, even 30 is pushing it. At the other end of the scale, films no longer than 5 minutes are dubbed 'micro-shorts,' these length short films are perfect for pre-film cinema and online viewing, they can also be shown instead of an ad break or as a short snippet in between two programmes on TV.

The ease and flexibility of a short film is probably its greatest advantage, it can be made from any type of film production, as is shown in the variety of films I've analysed, there is a lot of variation and several different techniques used. Short Film makers have described the process as a laboratory for filmmakers, a place where it's safe to experiment new ideas that conceptually could become a feature film.

One flaw for short films is often budget, people don't want to invest huge amounts of money into a film that is only going to be 5-30 minutes long, it isn't cost effective. As a result of this short films often have problems finding funding and ever getting noticed, simply because they are unable to advertise or publicise themselves by any means other than online.

Short Film and Film itself is still a relatively new concept, only in 1895 was the first ever film - which was a short - displayed to a public audience. Finally then in 1968 Spielberg made his mark as a director with his short film Amblin' and it was from this point that people understood the power of the short film. Since 2006 the general public have been able to download and purchase short films and transfer them or stream them to their PDA's iPods and other handheld devices.