Festival Sumbissions Pt. III - KISS me - Please!

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It’s time to come clean on shorts…

Notice, festivals never ask you to submit your ‘clam-diggers’ for competition.  There is not a ‘capri pant’ category.  The industry phrase is ‘Short Films.’   Short. 

What is ‘short?’ 

“Oooh!  I got this one,” you say – raising your arm high and waving it around with the same spastic energy of a fishing reel that’s snagged an Alaskan King salmon in the throes of spawning season.  “A short film is any film under an hour – OR whatever the maximum time allotment is on your WAB requirement page.  Suck it! Yeah!  High fives all around!”

You’re right – kind of.  Many festivals allow ‘short film’ submissions up to 60 minutes in length with 60 or 61 minutes being the bridge into what is considered the ‘feature film’ category.

“So my movie is 45 minutes long.  It’s a short!  See?  Easy-peasy!”

Not exactly.  See, at the end of the day, when programming a film festival, long shorts are frequently the first to get cut. 

“No fair!  You just said they could be up to 60 minutes long and mine’s only 45!  Why would you say that if you don’t mean it?”

It’s not that we don’t mean it.  Scheduling usually breaks into two-hour blocks, which allow time for a typical feature film to be introduced, screened and then followed up with a Q&A.  So shorts are usually divided up into thematic ‘Shorts Programs’ that will fit inside that same two-hour window with time for a brief intro and a discussion to follow. 

“So you’ve still got another 45 – 65 minutes of runtime in that slot.  What’s the problem?”

True.  But by and large we get a very high volume of very good short films.  So the problem is your 45-minute short needs to be BETTER than FOUR to FIVE other shorts of a similar theme to program it.  And I have more disheartening news.  In most cases, a 45-minute short (or any short over 25 minutes usually) is not tight enough to make the cut. 

Remember all those things I cautioned about in my first blog?  Pacing, economy of visual storytelling, montage abuse?  More often than not, long shorts are chief offenders.  They don’t enter scenes as late as possible.  They don’t get out before it gets boring.  They take too long with slow-moving artistic camera angles that don’t propel the story.

“You just don’t understand my art!” you say, closing your eyes and sticking your fingers in your ears.  “La, la, la, la – I can’t hear youuuuu!”

Maybe you’re right.  Maybe I don’t understand your art.  But most of us on these committees are here because we love film, and we have an especially soft spot for indie film.  We WANT to see ‘cutting edge.’  We WANT to program films that make us think and give us something to talk about afterward.  But we don’t want the Q&A to be, “What the hell was that movie even supposed to be about?  I don’t understand the point!”  And even if I ‘get’ what your trying to do, if there are other films that do it better, yours won’t get programmed. 

Sure there are a few exceptions when it comes to long shorts – and they’re almost ALL documentaries.  Docs are unique animals that are afforded a little more fluidity.  But a programmed 45-minute doc will never feel like it’s 45 minutes long.

“So what do I do with this killer 45-page script I wrote?”

Trim the fat.  Turn it into a super-tight 8 – 20 minute script.  Or flesh it out.  Add a B-story and make it a full-blown feature film.  But please, Please, PLEASEmake sure you get some money and few decent actors before you shoot it!  (Coming soon in another blog.)  The bulk of 25-plus-minute narrative shorts feel underdeveloped or under edited.  Work on making something AMAZING in 10 minutes or less. 

I mean, think about it – would you rather see a great pair of legs in capri pants or Daisy Dukes? 

‘Nough said!