Many people go into creating a short film in order to build up their reputations as directors. This acts as a personal advert, which could allow these filmmakers to go on to make feature films. Yet, the shorts must carry large amounts of macro meaning, which is generally thought provoking or controversial, in order to get funding and support for features from the ‘UK Film Council’. On the other hand, others view short films as an art form, creating meaning from provided from the director’s own life instead of being a personal advert. This view is taken because short films no longer have a regular slot in commercial cinema and rarely get broadcasted on television, and if so it is usually at very late times, even at 3 am. Short films used to be shown before features in cinemas but as the feature films became longer and more publicized short films were left by the wayside. This was particularly apparent in the larger chain cinemas.
Short films have become more affordable to make since the introduction of DV technology. This has enabled new talent filmmakers a chance to make a short and therefore they can secure public funding. This is partly because budgets for celluloid films have steadily increased. The costs of the celluloid therefore, is difficult to justify because for substantially less cost emerging film makers can easily work with digital equipment without compromising the product. The new DV technology is supposedly a result of short films as they lead to technical innovation due to the higher demand for cheaper, DV not celluloid, equipment.
Shorts are often shown on Television and Internet. There are however some companies that do distribute short films by approaching independent cinemas, often using funding to reach an agreement with them. However the more desirable large chain cinemas rarely show shorts before the feature film. This means that the Internet and Television are the main distributors of short films. The distribution by Television is restricted because the shorts are almost always broadcast at off peak, some what offensive times, such as 3am. This has huge impact on the size of the potential audience, let alone the actual audience. The Internet is the largest distributor of short films and they enjoy huge popularity. However some of the short film broadcasting websites can be very hard to find because in the main they are not advertised clearly. This yet again restricts and constricts the audience, down to very few in comparison to feature films.
Some believe that there are limitations of the format that the shorts are filmed in and where they are distributed. Filmmaker Asif Kapadia believes that “ digital… can affect makers decisions on set (and that the films) can be made better in editing.” Meaning that the new technology has resulted in filmmakers not worrying about budget (as celluloid made them do) and they do not think things through before going on set. By editing out the unwanted parts of the film it affects the quality of the film, no matter how good the story might be. However, many believe that the new technology has allowed better quality as filming as by knowing and recognizing that the quality of DV isn’t as clear as celluloid and working with it, allowing new talent to shine.
The writer of the article ‘Eat my Shorts,’ provide the view that the UK has found it hard to find new talent in recent years. This is because even though there is more government based funding, it supports very few short films, in terms of production. The writer of an article called ‘Short Films’ on ‘Screen Online’ suggests other reasons for the lack of effective shorts and new talent. It suggests that short films can be repetitive and that new. This is because the groundbreaking, well thought-out plots are being substituted because of the want for and of the wider audience. Generally the filmmakers want their shorts to reach bigger, more mainstream audiences. This often takes over the original desire to make a more innovative, meaningful short. The article offers another reason for the decline and this is that shorts are constrained by a lack of funding. This is very damaging because it confines filmmakers to making what they can afford to create, rather than what they want to create. Through reading both articles it is clear that the difficulties of distributing shorts also severely affects finding new talent. This is because it doesn’t reach a large enough audience to have any measurable effects on either the filmmaker or the reputation of shorts. Through these articles it is clear to see that the short film world could be described as a vicious circle. However with growing support from well-established government and non-government organisations this can and possibly will break the endemic problems faced by shorts.
