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.