So, what are short films...

well short films are defined by the Academy of Motion Picture

Arts and Sciences as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40
minutes or less, including all credits". This is very lenient though as modern short
films have an average run time of around 10-15mins. This is mainly because of
things like limited budget and small ideas that can be told in a short space of time.
Short films are very independent productions and because of this they aren’t shown
by big cinemas, however a lot of short films go into competitions between other short
films in film festivals where short films are shown on cinema like screens and
professionally judged and given appropriate awards.

So, we’ve established what a short film is but how did they start... how did film start
and how did it evolve into what we have now. The first piece of stationary live action
film was a 1890s 50second films called “the arrival of a train at la ciotat”. This short
film was small, but it was the first instance of a film. This film revolutionised film and
showed an example of the fact that not only could we now capture images, but now
we could capture moving images.

20 years later we were blessed with films and actors such as Charlie Chaplin. May
people know of this legendary man’s comedic performances that changed the way
we thought films could be. In the 1910s films were becoming a lot more popular and
they were being given dedicated cinemas to shows these films. Sound wasn’t quite
perfected though, so a lot of the sound had to be a man preforming the songs with a
piano live while the film played. This was around the time that cameras themselves
started to evolve and cuts and editing was introduced. It wasn’t complicated, but it
was the building block of editing today and was the start of a process that would be
applied to nearly all films in the future.

In the 1960s colour started to make an appearance, examples like walking in the
1960s shows that colour wasn’t quite to the level we have today, but it was pretty
close. The fact that film was now possible to be shot in colour made the creative film
process and viewing a lot more entertaining, however. It also made filming a lot
harder as things that you didn’t have to worry about in the past were now something
that you had to think about, for example a lot of special effects used in black and
white would now need to be more detailed when it came to colours. Short films at
this time weren’t really well known however they would be put as an intermission
during the cinema experience, where you could get food watch the advertisements
or short informative films about various topics.

In the 1980s short films started to grow and places like the Sundance film festival.
The Sundance film festival was an amazing idea started in Salt Lake City in August
1978 as the Utah/US Film Festival, in an effort to attract more filmmakers to Utah.
the Sundance film festival is an event in which filmmakers and short film makers got
together and watched their creations and then were judged to see who the best
independent filmmaker was

Not only in this time did the Sundance begging but cameras and cinematography
evolved just as much. Beginning with black and white cameras with very low
resolution and more focused on capturing the action. Once we figured out how to
capture film we worked on improving the detail to make the films more immersive
once tvs were invented (19??) frames per second came into play around this time
the whole world greed that 25fps would be a suitable frame rate to capture as It was
the sweet spot off frames making the picture look smooth and not too choppy, this
was mainly because televisions and most crt monitors had a refresh rate of 25
frames per second. This meant that people filming short films would be more
accepted if they were in this commonly known format. Cameras were able to create
this frame rate, but they were big and clunky and when thinking about resolution the
bigger the camera the better it was, but this meant they were expensive. This has
changed however as in the modern day and age you can shoot a clear and easily
understandable short film on something as small as a football.

At the moment short films are as popular as ever with the introduction of social
media site as a platform to show these short films. There are more short films in the
21st centaury than there have ever been and because of this, short films are now one
of the biggest independent forms of productions. This is mainly because short films
don’t need much equipment. All you really need is a camera. That’s it. All you need
is a camera, maybe some lights actors and a microphone but there are a lot of short
films that are made without these things. This almost resembles the start of film with
limited details.

I talked earlier about editing and this prosses has changed dramatically. From
physically cutting film with scissors to cutting it on a digital program. Not only has
cutting evolved but so has visual effects. From bullets in moons to blowing up those
planets with lasers. Visual effects have not only changed dramatically but so has
audio. Audio recording software/hardware is clearer easier to use, and editing has
also made things like Foley a crucial part of creative film and a much-respected job.

Short films in modern times are Widley accepted because of their Indy feel and
expression, however in times like the 70s and 80s when film was known and used as
common entertainment short films weren’t very recognised nor were they made
much. The arrival of things like the Sundance film festival in august 1978 made small
independent creators of film more know giving them a label to their work. Now
sometimes this wuld be films and sometimes it would be short films. Early in the
Sundance film festivals appearance there weren’t many short films but as the years
rolled on this ideal became popular as they were able to show of the director’s skills
and artistry without having to subject the audience to long and sometimes confusing
films.

Short films such as living dolls came out in the 1980s and is one of the most well-
known and famous short films from the eara. Short films like this showed that there
was an audience for short films and because of this short film and the people making
them grew and grew, cameras got better and easier for independent film makers to
get. From giant cameras to small but powerful machines of film, cameras also
evolved in the same way that film did. Not only did cameras evolve but so did the
prosses of editing
From manual cutting the film to create cuts and edits do the digital cutting we have
today, in the 1980s computers and digital formats for film had just started so a lot of
digital editing was extremely rough and sometimes would look cheesy or bad
however it was still editing and no matter how bad it looked it was evolving just like
film itself, this way of editing made it easier for independent film makers to edit their
short films into something that looked good

Short film now Is more accessible than ever before due to digital platforms like vimeo
and YouTube people can watch short films without even having to go outside their
room, people have access to information to make these short films and it’s also
easier than ever to buy a camera and start getting people together to make a short
film

Short films are extremely important in modern times because of the demand for
entertainment and the demand for new directors and film makers, short films work as
an example to show of that filmmaker’s potential and skill. The way that film has
evolved is fascinating and there is more than just what is shown on the internet.
Looking into this I have found out so many things about film and the prosses of short
film throughout time.

So, what are short films. No matter how they are defined short films are a part of
something so much bigger than they appear to be. What might be a small 10 minuet
story to you might be a masterpiece in cinematography or film. There’s no way to tell
until it’s been made and due to this art being so open to ideas means that short film
will never really be finished and nor will the people that continue to make it. All we
have to do now is see how short film evolves from this point on and how it’s going to
change the way we see film

Thanks for watching