Agencies and organizations surrounding the world of short film have been set up to help support filmmakers. Some offer training, some offer help in developing products, whereas some do a mixture of both.
One of these agencies is ‘Lighthouse’. The agency is based in the South East and supports, commissions and showcases new work by artists and filmmakers. ‘Lighthouse offers many commissions of varying prestige through different forms of media. One of these commissions is ‘Utilitarian Dreams’ where selected pieces of moving image artwork was commission due to the exploration of links between Brighton and Havana. This and other commissions however are largely art based and less film based, however some shorts are also artistic in their presentation and shot selection. They have however offered training specifically film directed. One of which is the ‘Pure: dyne’. This is an opportunity to be trained in film editing software. They also offer a course on ‘Script Development’, which is extremely helpful if someone intends to become a writer/director like so many short filmmakers. An ‘Introduction into Screenwriting’ and ‘Further Steps on Screenwriting’ are also very beneficial courses to go on as they offer invaluable advice and rules on how to be a good screen write and therefore make a good, effective short film. There are courses looking into ‘After Effects’ as well as more complex skill set courses such as ‘Animation Storyboarding’. ‘Guiding Lights’ is arguably this agencies claim to fame, as it offers mentoring to emerging UK filmmaking talent. One of the mentors in previous years has been ‘Danny Boyle’, the director of ‘Slumdog Millionaire’. Many of these courses are back by very prestigious organizations such as the ‘UK Film Council’, the ‘UK Arts Council’ and ‘ICO’.
Another organization is ‘Raindance’ who offer many different courses. They offer courses in three different areas, one in writing, one in producing and one in directing. The most notable course for short film is the ‘Story Design in Short Fiction Films’, this course offers a talk from Richard Raskin, who teaches screenwriting and video production at Aarhus University in Denmark. The speaker offers a view inside the world of short film writing theories. This makes this course invaluable to new and experience short filmmakers alike. The most applicable production course for short film is the ‘Lo-to-no Budget Filmmaking’, which is a course on filming in many different formats and shows how to shoot a film and sell it, an area that short films fall down on. The most helpful course for short films within directing is the ‘How To Make a Short Film’ course, which could be combined with ‘The Short Film Project’ course to give an extensive view into the skills need to make a short film. It gives the chance for the students to learn how to make the image in brain into the real finished article, which could go on to do well at short film festivals, especially the festival that ‘Raindance’ run themselves. This organisation also offers a range of diplomas and special events such as the ‘Raindance Film Festival at latitude’.
‘Skillset’ is a training agency, and it has links with other agencies such as ‘Lighthouse’ on projects like ‘Guiding Lights’. One of their courses offers teaching on methods of funding, marketing and distributing independent films, which is extremely important for short filmmakers to understanding. ‘Skillset’ also has three film academies, one of which is the ‘Edinburgh Skillset Screen and Media Academy’. This academy produces films that are shown at assorted film festivals and are featured in ‘Skillset’s Trailblazers’. This agency is very responsible as it also offers knowledge and teaching on ‘The Business of filmmaking’ and the film world. This type of teaching is vital in making new UK talent realise how just making a good film is not enough to cement a place within the short film world nor the feature film world.
The ‘Script Factory’ is an oganisation that helps screenwriters but also offers many courses in other aspects of filmmaking. Some of these courses include: ‘Story Design’, ‘Script Reading’, ‘Horror & Slasher’, ‘Truth & Fiction’ and ‘Thriller’ to name just a few. These courses as might be expected are mainly aimed to making filmmakers understand theories behind the writing and themes of films. However the courses can and do provide links to what they call ‘Friendly Producers’ who look at the screenplays and can help to get them made into a film. This direct partnership into the real world of film can invaluable for filmmakers and offers something that many other training organisations do not offer.
The mentioned agencies and oganisations play a vital part in keeping the UK film industry alive by educated talent and providing the tools for these talented filmmakers to produce what their ability promises. The British film industry is littered with many different types of film from varying genres, however social realism is the most widely selected genre. A genre that is directly translated from the short film world.
