Research into Short Films

Definition of a Short Film: The technical description of a short film was originally coined in North Africa, their definition referred to films lasting from 20 to 40 minuets. However in Europe it can refer to films that have a last from 1 minute, or have duration of 10 to 20 minuets. The only real classifications of short films is their duration but also their narrative style, for example short films include circular narratives however it is not compulsory for the short story to have a beginning or end. There are no limits to the short films genre or themes either so the possibilities are endless. The reason for this is that the audience does not spend much time to watch a short film therefore can only be dissatisfied to a certain extent.
Many European forms of short films are dependant on visual drama or plot twists. Short films are usually a brief fictional narrative that can be multi-stranded, usually presenting a single episode or scene with a limited amount of characters. Other conventions of cinematography use in short films include close ups, jump cuts, stop action and handheld kinetic camerawork. Finally a Short Films purpose is not usually commercial because they are not financially providing, and are financially safe during production, but short films are more experimental or for work of arts and innovation by cinematographers with a purpose or moral of the short film. Other reasons for the production of the short film are aesthetic enjoyment and education purposes.

Short films are very different compared to full length feature films, in contrast Hollywood blockbusters are made to make a financial profit; this limits the producer’s ability for experimentation in comparison to the short film. In a short film if the audience does not like the film or does not understand it, they have only wasted a short time of their attention, however in a full length feature film a possible 2 hours could be lost if the audience are not entertained. Therefore full length feature films are limited with experimentation of possible hard hitting themes or innovative narrative structures with no narrative closure, full length feature films are usually forced into typical chronologically occurring narrative that is easy to comprehend with a plain beginning middle and end. Typical to Toderove’s three part theory of films that start with an equilibrium situation, something then effects this situation and then becomes a disequilibrium, and finally the situation is solved or won creating a new equilibrium. However short films rarely follow Toderove’s theory, this is partly due to the film not having a long enough duration to introduce and portray all of these stages or the theory, therefore short films often do not have a narrative closure and can experiment more with narrative structure. In comparison, if the audience sat through a full length feature film that did not have a narrative closure the audience would feel slightly cheated as if the film finished abruptly, but if this was a short film with no narrative closure the audience would be less likely to consider it a waste of time.