Post 6- What Makes A Good Short Film ?

Short films are the fastest growing section of the movie business, with major directors, big brands, and web guerrillas all using them to reach big audiences. A recent issue of The Independent says 'There has never been a better time to watch short films. There are more being made, there are more festivals that cater to the format, and the Internet and portable devices are perfect for watching short films.'

We were lucky enough to have a visit from film Producer Becky Knapp, her visit not only gave me great insight into film making but also taught me a lot about how the film industry works and the purpose of a short film. Short films can range in length from three to five minutes, or twelve to fifteen minutes. The Times states 'Most festivals will accept a short anything that is under 30 minutes, but many programmers and curators also say that they find it difficult to place longer short films (ones over 20 minutes). If your film is over 20 minutes long it may well need and be able to cope with more characters and a secondary story strand. The majority of funding in the UK is aimed at films that are around the 10 minute mark.'  If your film is five minutes there is no time to establish the characters so you must work on stereotypes, in contrast, if your film is twenty minutes long it may have a subplot so there is more room for complex characterisation. In a short film the character in the film must have a problem or obstacle otherwise there is a loss of dramatic tension. You must also think about who's point of you you are telling the story from. Becky quotes 'A film is about showing and not telling'. The main character must have a want, need or obligation. In any film there must be a catalyst for change, the climax and finally a resolution. This can be a very strenuous task when creating a short film as you have limited amount of time in which to include all prior things. Finally Becky stated that you must try and sum up your film in one line, this is called a 'log line'.

Becky gave us several of her scripts, one of these was 'Does God Play Football' first we read the script and from reading the script i did not imagine the film how it was when we watched it. This film had an impact on me, i enjoyed watching the story unravel and the element of the 'Feel good factor' the music and lighting in this film were particularly effective.The warm glowing lighting when there was a mention of God helped the audience to understand the cut off point between real life and fantasy. I feel when producing my own short film i would like to incorporate a form of this cross between two worlds, its effective in a sense that the audience can relate because its a realistic and relative to modern, every day life.

After this Becky went on to state that the title of any film is imperative. It either has to relate to and set up the genre or in contrast have nothing to do with the genre to leave people guessing, for example Sean of the dead. As well as this Becky explained that a film regardless of its length must have one sentence that summarises what happens, what is revealed and that is significant to the plot. Finally Becky went on to say that with short films you must keep the tone consistent, keep the character active and show the change in the character.Becky’s visit left us grate incite into the world of short film, provided us with lots of information and most importantly a variety of scripts.  The script we focused on was “Does God play football?” I enjoyed reading through this script and after we had done this as a class we got to watch the film, i really enjoyed reading through the script and then watching the film because i showed me how a script can come to life. With this in mind it helped me to develop my idea as well as get a good insight on how scripts should be set out.

When producing a short film it is clear that the writing and idea development part of any film is likely to be one of the more challenging areas for film makers. With this in mind when writing a script it is important to have previously approached the idea generation and writing stage of your short film. Many critics have analysed a variety of scripts and pre-production work and have said that the most frequent problem is that all producers want to include too much information for their short films. A key and successful part of this short film i feel is the use of music, music plays a huge role in helping to recognise the genre of the film and in 'Does God Play Football' the film begins by blaring out classical music including the sound of an organ which instantly tells the audience that the plot is based around a church and the concept of religion. The use of music also helps to create emotion and tension and key parts of the film.