Short films garnishing Oscars and attracting audiences with small and crisp compelling stories. The short films are an awesome part to indulge for the first time filmmaker and or for a renowned writer to work on a side-project. Short films have crisp and short stories for just five minutes generally and are ready to burn the screens with good content.
What are short films?
There is no such rule for the short films duration. But typically it can range up to 50 minutes long. 20 minutes is the average length and it goes on to be 50 minutes long.
The short films are generally full of live-action, animations, or computer generated VFX. Just like feature films, short films depict closed-ended stories with a unique beginning, interval (mid), and the end. The short films which are nominated have a crystal clear focus on the subject matter and are very economical with the storytelling. They utilize only a few locations, generally one or two and few characters.
How long should the screenplay of short films be?
For script writers, when they are writing a script, their one page typically means one minute of screenplay. So if we require the short film to be 50 minutes or long, so the script should be around 50 pages long.
Why are short films important to the new filmmakers?
If you’re just looking to produce, direct and sell the full length films (feature films), then you might not be interested in the short films. But the reality is that short films are much more beneficial to the new and bidding filmmakers who are looking way ahead for their bright career in filmmaking.
The benefits of short films to new filmmakers are as follows:
- Find an ideal representation:
Short films are an ideal platform for those who are opting new skills such as script writing or direction. This is very important for budding directors and screenwriters who do not have much budget to spend on the film. The short films are generally proven easier for distribution and it give the distributor agents to make a quick insight into the filmmaker’s creative choices and voice.
- Raise your popularity:
You can gain much popularity as well by submitting the film to a film festival. By this, not only you can get recognition but you can win exciting awards as well. When you choose to screen your film at a big festival, you can also raise your profile as a director or s filmmaker and thus you can be considered for big projects. The big projects can prove as the life-changing opportunity for your career. One thing you may have to keep in mind that you should keep your film as short as possible because the festival organizers tend to screen many movies in a defined duration of time. So it increases your chance of winning the award.
- Secured Funding to movie:
Short films are proven to be successful concepts for more ambitious projects. This helps the screenwriter and directors to have some funds arranged for their full-length feature film or a television/web series.
- Reduce the distribution cost for the film
When you are finished making a short film and want to have a secured distribution for your project, you may find short films way more experimental than the feature film. Short films are easy to publish online, you can share it via video publishing sites such as vimeo or YouTube. The only thing you need to do is to do some research to find your target audience for the film.
How can you start writing a short film?
(Step-by-step guide)
It includes four steps when you start writing a short film: Brainstorming, Outlining, writing and rewriting.
- Brainstorming: If you want to know where to start finding ideas for your short film, start drafting any ideas that come to your mind and see which works best. You must have some prompt ideas also to draft the scripts such as some image or incident you remember from your childhood days? What is the main reason behind your attraction to cinema? Analyse your family stories, relationships, victories or some historic incidents. Once you have come up with some nice ideas, start writing them on your notepad, write down all the incidents, all the happenings whether good or bad, dialog pieces along with some content to include in the film. Just write whatever comes to your mind, whether or not you want that to be seen by your audience. Once you’re done with this, start arranging them into elements of the story.
- Outlining: Once you’ve brainstormed all the ideas to a simple and clear picture, start framing those into the outline of the film. Just like a feature film, short films also have a beginning, mid and the end. While outlining, you will map out the overall structure of the film. At this phase, you might not know what exactly would come at each part of the film. Whereas, Some writers prefer to have the information of all the scenes before starting to write the script.
- Write an initial draft: From the second step, you know what shape the film story will get. So now you can have your first draft written. Short films have the same kind of screenplays as a feature film, the only difference lies in the duration of screenplays. Short films have screenplays of less duration as comparable to feature films. A good thumb rule to write a better script is “enter late, and get out early”. In other words it means, enter each scene as late in the action as possible, and get out as soon as your character has gotten what they needed in the scene. You have many pages to tell a story, but you don’t need to waste the story line and your time on backstory and unnecessary moments.
- Rewrite a final script: Even if you have your script written, you need to have the script rewritten again and screenwriting is no exception. When you are done writing your first draft, you can give it to your friends and relatives to have their inputs and feedback. Coming up next, you will write your second and then final draft to refine the script and make some necessary changes in dialogues.
