Introduction of Shorts

For Our A2 Media coursework we have been set the task of creating a 5 minute short, but to begin with what even is a short?

Strictly speaking, a short film is any film that is not long enough to be classified as a feature film. These days however they have developed to be and much more experimental form of filming, bringing clever little twists and creative links within the small story to leave satisfaction after resolving the story yourself. Short comedies have been around for ages and have been particularly popular (ie. Charlie Chaplin) but now there are no end to the ranges of genre and style. Within North America, a Short is often about 20-40 minutes long, but in reality they are often no longer than 5 - 15 minutes, some even standing at just over one minute.

Shorts are occasionally broadcast as filler when a feature film or other work doesn't fit the standard broadcast schedule. ShortsTV is the first television channel dedicated to short films. It broadcasts an SDTV feed in France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Turkey (Ttnet). A HDTV version of the channel, ShortsHD, is available on AT&T U-verse channel 1789. Movieola is a Canadian cable channel devoted exclusively to shorts up to 40 minutes long. Another Canadian TV station, Bite TV, is trying to become the world's first user-generated television station, encouraging viewers to send in their videos. Mainly, however, short films must rely mainly on festival exhibition to reach an audience. Such films can also be distributed via the Internet. Across the Hall, for example, was solely distributed on the net. Certain websites which encourage the submission of user-created short films, such as YouTube, Vimeo, Openfilm, BritFilms and Newgrounds have attracted large communities of artists and viewers. Sites like BBC Film Network focus on showcasing curated shorts.

Short films are a typical first stage for young filmmakers, though films such as S. Luciani's Dolls show how professional actors and crews still choose to create short films as alternative form of expression.

Short filmmaking is growing in popularity as equipment becomes cheaper and more amateurs are making films. "Prosumer" or semi-professional cameras now cost under $3,000, and free or low-cost software is widely available that is capable of video editing, post-production work and DVDauthoring.