Exhibition and Distribution of Short Films...

Exhibition

Where mainstream feature length films are generally exhibited in cinemas, with large cinema chain deals and with a huge marketing budgets short films are generally only exhibited at film festivals with the awards from the film festivals being the only real marketing tool a short film will get. It is very rare that short film will ever be exhibited in a cinema. Due to film festivals being the only real exhibition for short films directors are making sure their work will be noticed by film festival organizers by making it as different and as creative as everything else out there, directors will also generally begin by targeting smaller festival with their work and using awards from those festivals as a factor to be recognized by larger festivals.

Distribution

Distribution is the main cuase for bringing in the money for mainstream films. This can include: box office sales, DVD's and merchandise sales. After advertisement, they are more recognised as films, therefore intriguing auidences in to come and watch the films. The desire for recognition over profit, is the main priority for short film directors: becoming recognised is the key to any success as a renowned director.

Most of the greatest directors from the 60's such as Martin Scorsese with his first short film "The Big Shave" and George Lucas with "01:42:08".

Seeing as it is a lot harder to publish your own work now, due to the wide variety of 'online portals' out there, there are a lot of

This alos means that the lack of any kind of profitable distribution in short film does not pose any threat to the mainstream industry.

Where there is some proof of short film collection DVD sales rising majority of short film distribution is through online websites such as YouTube. There are some sites which specialise in distribution of short films such as Depict! A site that showcases only short films less than 90 seconds, the site can be used by any member of the public and the site is recognized by more professional directors and festival organizers. Another site specialized with short film distribution is the BBC Network, based on specifically British short films the site has hundreds of short films opened to any member of the public divided into the categories animation, artist moving image, music, drama comedy and documentary.

Codes And Conventions

Short Film - Code and Conventions

A short film is quite literally defined by its length in time: being anything less than 50 minutes in length. As commonly misconstrued by people, short film is not in fact a genre of film although albeit not mainstream. Productions such as Raindance and Brief Encounters showcase such works in particular, towards a very niche audience. It was

Anything can be considered as a short film as long as the length of time is correct:

• Documentary: this is the production of documenting everyday people’s lives/ reality. Michael Moore was great for this with his documentries "Roger and Me" and "Bowling for Columbines". They often infromed people of different lifestyles that they may not have known previously and also can tend to be contreversial. Documetries never tend to be nutural there is always the reporters underlying opinion being a 'journalistic slant' to it.
  

• Animation: These shorts can be either drawn or computer generated, fine examples of these are Pixar’s shorts such as their first ever animation “Knick Knack” made in 1989. This was very advanced for its time, and was in fact a pre-liminary test in order to see if the animation worked.
• Arty/ Avante Garde/ Experimental: reefers to Avant-garde films that have also made an influence on the way that many of the music videos being produced today are made.

• Live action short: These tended to have a narrative that was acted out (not animated) by actors.

• Soundie: the early verson of music videos. Here is an example of a quartet singing the "Hut Hut song". This primarily promoted singers and bands of the time.
  

• Sponsored: Relating to a particular social/political issue at the time. Scorsese’s 'The Big Shave' is known to reflect the Vietnam war and Ahmed Ahmed Imamovic’s “10 minutes” is a dipiction of the war in Bosnia in 1994. Green Peace in partiualr hire small groups to film "witness videos". These would be used either to pomote their cause via. an internet portal or TV advert, or either used as News footage.
  

Mainstream Film (50+ minutes)

Short Films (-50 minutes)

· Large cast & Crew · More props, costume · Big budget · Publicity: more well-known and better chance of being seen. · Narrative: beginning, middle and ending. The "Classic Narrative" · Famous actors: sold a certain glamorous 'lifestyle', fans of these actor/esses tended to bring in the audience too.

Small cast and Crew Low budget - sometimes not even anything Complete narratives: normally not Niche audiences Grainier/ realistic than mainstream Tended to break boundries. Often had a lot of complexity and plurality regarding aesthetics. For example, they broke 'forth walls' which is very famous in The Great Train Robbery, 1903 And also manipulate time and space using jump cuts and special effects such as "The X-Rays" in 1897 by G.A Smith.

Short Film in The 21st Century

With the internet exploding into out lives, it becamse so much easier for people to be recognised than before, giving everyone a chance to have their voices heard.

The Video Diary became very popular through: Television programmes (often late at night- which had been shown primarily in late night 'filler' slots), the internet especially gave people like chris Cunningham his recognition with Rubber Johnny. The Iphone, X-box and other services provides assorted advertisement too, as you can purchase shorts on your phone or games console.

Video Activism in particular became very popluar in the late 20th/early 21st century. It gave a voice to the mases who couldn't be heard. Acticvists such as Green Peace and Amnesty International in particular would often ocmmission small groups of film makers for them to be viewed at certain film festivals, TV advertisements: in order to get people on board with their cause.
They would oftenbreak into test labs and physically stop hunters etc. from hunting endangered species. Alos filming these hunters got the hunters prosecuted too which was a great help to their cause.

"About A Girl"

Time: 9:50 mins
Director: Brian Percival
Cinematographer: Geoff Boyle
Writer: Julie Rutherford
Budget: £33,000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL2z8Qzn1dc&feature=related

This piece is a social realism documentry/drama about a young 13 year old girl, quite 'chav'-like in appearance, who throughout talks about what she wants to do with her future etc. She talks to the camera as she walks along what seems to be a river along the side of an industrial/estate area. Throughout the shots there are a lot of bricks, walls and almost this feel of her being trapped in this society, and as we later find out, trapped by her pregnancy. Her appearance suggests that she is possibly older than she may actually be: her hoops earings and deep, husky voice compliment her thoughful and often ineligent output, yet the non-revealing clothes, hair undone and no make-up still suggests her innocence. It relates back to her being pregnant: that transition between childhood and adulthood.

• Messages and morals are prominant throughout short films, they tend to have either a very strong political/socail contreversial even, message being put across to the audeince. The shock factor has always been a big part of creating short films, going above and beyond mainstream filmakers, exploring a wider scale and thinking outside of the 'box'.

Shane Meadows and short film...

We watched an interview of him, of which he went on to talk about his style and production techniques. He went on to say how he liked to get to know the cast and crew a few weeks pre-production in having this basic level of trust and familiarisation with the cast and crew, enables the filming to feel just as relaxed as real life as opposed to a controlled ‘set’.

"The Stairwell"

The tense non-diegetic music already engages us into the story.
His storylines tend to be about the working class life, as growing up ina working class background, he wanted to share that side of life with the audience. This interest in everyday life brought him to make his film film, on his camera phone, "The Stairwell". The film is opnly 30 seconds long but it takes an everyday occurance of bumping into someone by accident on a staircase and creates more drama and mystery to it. There is almost an element of comedy within this, as you sort of laugh at how over the top they are being after a bump. The camera phone adds to the grittiness, and actually manages to captures some interesting POV shots and also showcases how good a director he actually is, having had a low form of camera to shoot with, and producing sucha masterful piece.Shane Madows' work is particularly aimed around the life of the 'working' class, as he was brought up from that area himself, which to me says a lot about the business of everyday 'working' people, which is clearly dipicted in this short: people goingin different directions. Alos i think this short is about you never really knowing whats round the corner and the fact that the world seems such a blur: people in their own 'worlds' and always ina hurry. It is such a simple piece, but it conjurs up a lot of thoughts about everyday life.

"Offside"

Director: Erez Tadmor and ? in 2005

Time: 5 min 51

As with "10 Minutes", it is a beautifully cpatured moment where something unites people together: in this case, it being two opposing 'sides' of a war between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

The warning sign at the start, pre-warns the audience that something bad is going to happen, although there is hope in the middle, and you almost laugh at it because it is so heart-warming. Until the troops accidentally shoots the other person, destruction ruins it. Its just a microcosm of what is actually happening between both sides in real life - innocent people, the masses, being destroyed and affected by the greed and pride of their peers, due to want over certain parts of land. This underlying message is obvious throughout the film, which is often a simlar occurance throughout many short films. This is what often sets short films aside from a feature length; whilst feature length films provide entertainment, short films tend to provide a political/social or ethical message, in an 'entertaining' way.

"10 Minutes"

Director: Ahmed Imamovic in 1994 Time: 9:15 minutes

This Short film won The "Best European short" in 2002, for its depiction of life in the unpredictable war zone of Sarajevo in Bosnia and the picturesque life in Rome in Italy. The story unfolds as we and how exactly a matter of 10 minutes is to each of the locations.
The diegetic music is slightly irreleveant to the piece itself, although it gives us a sense of transition between both places: the first part of music sounding ‘Italian’ as opposed to the heart-felt violins within the Bolivian scene. The diegetic sounds are very relevant to the story also; the mundain industrial sounds, dogs barking, babies crying as they sugggest a busy community. It could also be interpreted as a slight microcosm of what is to come: dog whimpering in pain and baby crying even louder due to the death and distruction. The colours of Rome are very bright and vibrant, suggesting it is full of life and happines, as opposed to the Bolivian lifestyle.

Production of Short films

As with mainstream film, short films follow the structure of production, exhibition and distribution albeit on a much lower scale and publicly known. This is mainly due to lack of funds, low budgets and all in all tend to be aimed toward a niche audience anyway: thus not having a particular 'way' to advertise etc.

Pathe was an still is a very large company, of which started off, with an advance range of facilities, technology, great marketting and efficient distrubution skills - allowing them to capture a huge share of the international market, for nay of their films. They founded in 1896, and acquired the Lumiere Brothers in 1901. They began their small business and have now grown into a huge company.

Mainstream tend to have a higher budget than short films, this is to pay for actors, crew, props, scenery amnd all sorts to do with production. Obviously successful short films tend to have a small budget which can range anything from zero pounds. One company that has gained a reputation for high quality short films is a production company named ‘silver films’: both "About a girl" and "Endgame" deriving from this companies production. ‘Cow boy Films’ is also an indpendant pridcution company that originally specialises in feature lengths such as The last king of Scotland, but was also the company behind the award winning short film Wasp in 2003, recieving one oscar and 21 other film awards.