Here is a definition I found of a short film;
"A short film is ant film not long enough to be considered a feature film. Although no consensus exists as to where that boundary is drawn, 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."
Short films are often screened at local, national and international film festivals and made by independent film makers for non-profit. Short films are generally used by filmmakers to gain experience and/or prove their talent in order to gain funding for future films.
Generic conventions of a short film
Characters - characters are an obvious convention of any short film. They tend to stick to 2 or 3 main characters. short films don't have time to create deep back story or history for the characters, therefore character numbers are kept low to allow the viewers to relate to the character in a short amount of time.
Twist - Short films nearly always have a twist. This is done to make the short film more interesting as they are so short. Without a twist in a short film the storyline would be uninteresting.
Here is an example of a short film I found that has a twist at the end;
Budget - Short films typically have a low budget. This is based on the fact that most short film directors are independent without the backing in terms of funding. They keep their budget down by sticking to one or two locations and only using one or two actors.
Length - Short films typically have a length of up to 35 minutes, they are typically around 5-10 minutes in length. If they were any longer they wouldn't be classed as short and would be classed as a feature film.
Situation - Short films usually take an everyday situation that we can all relate to ad then flip it on its head in some way, This allows the viewer to relate to the short film in some way, but at the same time intriguing them.
My next post will be my short film research
