Short Films: About the Short Film Medium, How You Write it, and Reasons it May Fail Your Story
What is a Medium?
Click HERE to read more about story mediums.
What is a Short Film?
I haven’t covered feature films yet, but with Iris Prize LGBT+ Film Festival hitting Cardiff this week, I felt it was a good time to go over what a short film is, seeing as there’s going to be so many of them showing this week.
Go check them out!
Or, if you’re reading this in the future, you should be able to head to Channel 4 to see a selection of their best submissions.
A short film is a tight story, visually told, in around 15-30 minutes. The specific medium, unsurprisingly, is film. In many ways they are presented identically to a feature. They have credits, a score, production design, actors and a director, and all the other filmmaking trimmings.
Like feature films, they also come in a range of budgets. Some short films are made using an iPhone and some supportive friends, while others take cast and crew jet-setting to lavish locations.
Narratively, short films follow all the normal screenwriting conventions. It is a visual medium, and the screenplay should come in at the average one page per minute. The story itself, as previously mentioned, should be complete and satisfying both to read and later to watch. There are no rules regarding narrative scope, but budgets are rarely large for short films, so that should be a serious consideration.
Once a short film has been produced, they tend to spend the rest of their lives being shunted from one film festival to another, being used as a calling card for everyone involved.
Because, at its heart, a short film is a joint endeavour. It’s your story, the directors vision, the actors lucky break, and the delight of an audience with a short attention span.
Libraries of Short Films
BFI Player
Iris Prize – Channel 4
Shorts – Film 4
Benefits of Writing for Short Film
The Festival Tour
Who doesn’t love a good tour? It’s literally all about you. All those questions nobody ever asked you about the nuance of your script? Buckle up, because you’re going to get to talk!
And you’re going to get feedback!
And, if you’re really lucky, you’ll have a standing ovation or two as well!
The circuit is hard work but infinitely rewarding (and on occasion Awarding). You’ll meet fellow writers, future collaborators, and a hopefully loyal following for your next work.
Turnaround of Project
Feature films can take months to film, and then more months to edit, and it’s all a bit much to be honest. Short films are still a lot of work, with long days and nights being dedicated to finishing the film to a high standard.
It is, though, quicker.
Your career will benefit from this turnaround. Especially as a writer. Feature film writers often lament the years they slave over a project. Luckily for a short film, once it’s written you can hand it off to the producer and director (if you’re not also taking on those roles) and move on to the next project. From that point you are a consultant and free agent.
Relative Creative Freedom
Disney and Blumhouse have certain styles. All production companies do. Because most short films are written and made independently before being added to libraries later, there are fewer restrictions on what can and can’t go into the script.
Of course, the basics of morality and human decency should be observed, and your limited budget considered, but ultimately you can put whatever you want in the script.
As long as you’ve got a cast and crew that share your vision and ambition, not even the sky is the limit.
Practical Craft Training
This is a writing blog, so I’d be remiss not to talk exclusively about writing in one of these points. One of the main rules of storytelling is to get in late and out early. If you’ve only got 15-30 pages to tell a complete story, you’re naturally going to be more economical with what you include.
And given the above point on turnaround, you can do this a number of times in a single year. Each time you do, you’ll learn something new. It may be a new way to introduce characters, or a new way to tailor your dialogue to suit actors’ speech, but whatever it is, each new production will take your craft to the next level.
Drawbacks of Writing for Short Film
The Budget
Creative freedom is great on the page, but not when a producer sits you down and tells you that building the International Space Station isn’t within the budget. Independent filmmaking is… in a word… cheap. The best films don’t show it, but they all share it.
So, by all means, shoot for the stars, just don’t expect them to look like Foundation.
Mistaking it for a Trailer for a Larger Project
If you listen to scriptwriting podcasts regularly, you’ll be aware of the notion some writers have about their short film being a pitch for a feature.
It isn’t.
A short film is its own thing, and pretending it isn’t is just going to be a disservice to the story you’re telling. This series is about owning your medium, so own it! Don’t waste your time, your directors time, and your audiences time, cramming 90+ minutes of storytelling into a medium it doesn’t belong.
Two Spider-Man movies should be evidence enough that more isn’t necessarily better when you have time constraints.
Market Saturation
Every few months, a slew of short film script competitions find their way online. A few months later, there’s an abundance of ceremonies and festivals to celebrate the winning entries that found their way to production.
That’s great!
It’s just also a lot! Meaning competition is stiff. As the market becomes more and more saturated, the standards are getting higher and higher. That’s great news for the filmmakers with the kit to compete, but it does make it harder for your voice to really punch through the noise.
Competition Restrictions
One of the main ways unconnected writers see their work realised is through writing competitions. They’re a great way to get your voice out there, IF the guidelines match up with your slate. Cast restrictions, set limitations, and regional voice are all vital production considerations, but they can be a kick in the teeth if you were really hoping this would be the big break you needed.
Reliance on Networking
The other setback of not being connected is… well, not being connected. If you don’t know a director, and your best mate doesn’t own a camera, getting a short film off the ground is near impossible.
It’s not impossible. It just feels it.
But all is not lost, new networks are popping up all the time! You just need to train your algorithm to find them!
Good luck!
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