Making it Big in Shorts...2nd edition

ADELMAN

P E R F O R M I N G AR TS / FI LM & V ID EO / D I R EC TI O N & P RODUCTION $ 16.95 USA / $ 23.95 CAN

Life is short. There’s no limit to what you can achieve by starting small and dreaming big. Updated with new content covering Kickstarter, Instagram, and new technology, this third edition addresses the aftermath of the digital revolution, a time when anyone with a smartphone can be a filmmaker and attract attention.

“Spot-on advice … ÷e can-do spirit jumps off the page.” —Andrea Richards, author, Girl Director

“An essential guide for anybody who wants to make short films!” —Bill Plympton, Oscar-nominated animator, Guard Dog

“÷e road map for making that short film you’ve long dreamed of.” —Matthew Harrison, director, Rhythm Thief

KIM ADEL M A N currently teaches Low-Budget Filmmaking at

MAK ING IT BIG IN SHOR T S

— MAKE MOVIES! —

KIM ADELMAN

Making It Big in Shorts

UCLA Extension. She was honored as Instructor of the Year ER SHORT R E T S A F ER CHEAP

in 2014 and won the UCLA Extension Distinguished Instructor Award in 2016. Ms. Adelman is also the author of The Girls’ Guide to Elvis, The Girls’ Guide to Country, and The Ultimate

MICHAEL WIESE PRODUCTIONS | MWP.COM

3rd Edition

Guide to Chick Flicks.

The Ultimate Filmmaker’s Guide to Short Films 3rd Ed

Praise for Making It Big in Shorts “Recommended for anyone about to start their own short film, or who wants to promote a short they’ve made.” —Raewyn Alexander, New Zealand Writers Guild “Adelman has a passion for short filmmaking and a deep commitment to empowering filmmakers with the skills they need. Her multiple teaching awards are distinctions [befitting] an exceptional educator. This wise, practical, and humorous guide is a gift to filmmakers . . . demystifies a complex process in easily understandable and instantly applicable action steps.” —Pascale Cohen-Olivar, Program Director, Entertainment Studies, UCLA Extension “A short but powerful guide to everything relevant you to know before, during, and after making your first short film — or your fifth!” —Andrew P. Crane, Special Project Programmer, American Cinematheque “A no-nonsense, concise, and to-the-point guidebook on how to make a short film that travels well on the festival circuit. . . . You can create something that garners the attention of industry pros, colleagues, and audiences alike, and Adelman’s book is the perfect companion on that journey.” —Rona Edwards, film & TV producer; author, The Complete Filmmakers’ Guide to Film Festivals and I Liked It, Didn’t Love It “The road map for making that short film you’ve long dreamed of . . . practical, up-to-the-minute, and chock-a-block with insider tips. Grab it and shoot!” —Matthew Harrison, director, Rhythm Thief, Kicked in the Head, Bystander from Hell, Sex and the City (TV) “Direct, to the point, and up to date on all the current social media and marketing trends for shorts. Sure wish we’d known about this book earlier in our filmmaking journey. No sidetracks, no fluff, just like a good short film. Solid . . . should help anyone make and market their film more successfully.” —Tommy G. Kendrick, actor / producer, Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell

“Kim Adelman has filled the pages of her latest book with every single step a filmmaker should consider when sharing their work with an audience. And she does it incredibly succinctly.” —Destri Martino, filmmaker; founder, The Director List “Let me be brief: Making It Big in Shorts packs a treasure trove of information into a bite-sized book . . . all you’ll ever need to join the big time in the short film category.” —Devon McMorrow, reviewer, Mobile Movie Making “An essential guide for anybody who wants to make short films, which is great, because I love the short-film format. It’s the best!” —Bill Plympton, Oscar-nominated animator, Guard Dog, I Married a Strange Person “Adelman does a terrific job of surveying the short films landscape with this thorough and informative guide for filmmakers.” —Dale M. Pollock, Professor of Cinema Studies, University of North Carolina; author, Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas “Forget film school; this book is all you need! Adelman’s spot-on advice comes from years in the trenches of indie filmmaking; her expertise breaks down the process of making your film and getting it seen. Her can-do spirit jumps off the page; she’s the producer we all want.” —Andrea Richards, author, Girl Director: A How-to Guide for the FirstTime, Flat-Broke Film and Video Maker “I wish I had discovered Making It Big in Shorts before I made my first short film! Drawing on her years of industry experience and her deep knowledge of the short film world, Kim reveals how to make a short with what you have and how to get it seen . . . the smartest, most liberating approach to expressing your creative vision.” —Xenia Shin, filmmaker / producer, Women Transforming Media “Essential reading for short filmmakers . . . employs experience, intelligence, solid information, compelling anecdote, wit, foresight, and insight to map out the best start-to-finish path for filmmakers. Its no-nonsense common sense will benefit filmmakers of every kind.” —Jacques Thelemaque, filmmaker; president, Filmmakers Alliance “Has it all: Ms. Adelman covers the why, how, and where to get short films made. From filmmaking to distribution and getting known, this book is masterful.” —Dave Watson, editor, Movies Matter

MAKING IT BIG IN SHORTS THE ULTIMATE FILMMAKER’S GUIDE TO SHORT FILMS

3RD EDITION

KIM ADELMAN

M I C H A E L

W I E S E

P R O D U C T I O N S

Published by Michael Wiese Productions 12400 Ventura Blvd. #1111 Studio City, CA 91604 tel. 818.379.8799 fax 818.986.3408 [email protected] www.mwp.com Cover design: Johnny Ink www.johnnyink.com Interior layout: William Morosi Copyeditor: Ross Plotkin All photos by the author or courtesy of the author except where noted. The author dedicates this edition to all my students past, present, and future. And Lumi and Louis Padilla-Adelman. Printed by McNaughton & Gunn, Inc., Saline, Michigan Manufactured in the United States of America © 2017 by Kim Adelman All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Adelman, Kim, author. Title: Making it big in shorts : the ultimate filmmaker’s guide to short films / Kim Adelman. Description: 3rd edition. | Studio City, CA : Michael Wiese Productions, 2016. Identifiers: LCCN 2016027963 | ISBN 9781615932566 Subjects: LCSH: Short films--Production and direction. Classification: LCC PN1995.9.P7 A35 2016 | DDC 791.4302/32--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016027963

Printed on Recycled Stock

CONTENTS

FOREWORD BY MARK BORCHARDT  vi INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION  viii ¾ CHAPTER 1 S O YOU WA N T T O M A K E A SHORT   1 ¾ CHAPTER 2 YOU R SHORT & YOU   13 ¾ CHAPTER 3 T H I N K L I K E A SHORT F I L M M A K E R   22 ¾ CHAPTER 4 W H A T K I N D OF SHORT SHOU L D YOU M A K E ?   31 ¾ CHAPTER 5 SE V E N SE C R E T S F OR S UC C E S S   44 ¾ CHAPTER 6 M A K I NG YOU R F I L M   56 ¾ CHAPTER 7 L AU NC H I NG YOU R SE L F A N D YOU R F I L M   74 ¾ CHAPTER 8 PA R L AY I NG YOU R L I T T L E F I L M I N T O A BIG CA R E E R   92 ¾ CHAPTER 9 F I F T Y F I L M M A K I NG T I P S   104 ¾ C H A P T E R 10 T E N E S SE N T I A L HOW-T O’ S   114

ABOUT THE AUTHOR  138

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horter. Faster. Cheaper. If you take nothing else away from this book, keep these three words in mind and you’ll do fine. Shorter: shorts should be short. If you want to make something long, make a feature. Even if your short is as short as you think it can be, believe me — it can and should be shorter. Faster: don’t wait. Make your short now. Start your story fast, end it fast. On the set, be quick and decisive. Have your actors speak fast. Shoot fast. Edit fast. When in doubt, value fast over slow. Cheaper: Rapid advances in technology means filmmaking keeps getting cheaper and cheaper. Celebrate the fact

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that you can do a lot with very little money. What counts most is creativity, not how much you spent on your film. There’s never been a better time to be a short filmmaker. Hard as it is to believe, YouTube didn’t exist when the first edition of this book was published in 2004. Kickstarter wasn’t around when the second edition was written in 2009. Nor were iPads, Instagram, Vine, Snapchat, or Periscope. Technology continues to give us new and exciting tools. Today you can shoot a six-second or a six-minute film on your phone and share it with a worldwide audience instantaneously. That’s the easy part. The hard part is getting people to pay attention to your film project. As a point of comparison, on an average day, 792 film and video projects vie for funding on Kickstarter. It’s hard to stand out in a crowd. Let’s say you make a short and get it on iTunes. Congratulations, you might actually be one of the rare few to make money off your short. But why should an iTunes customer spend hard-earned money on your little film instead of the latest Top 10 song, binge-worthy television series, or Hollywood blockbuster? What about YouTube and the 300 hours of media that get uploaded to that site every minute of every day? How can your short be singled out? In this era in which anyone with a smartphone can be a filmmaker, you can’t invest your time, money, and dreams of glory in the theory that “if you build it, they will come.” It’s not enough to know how to make a short. You need to know how to make a short that will attract viewers and launch a career.

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The good news is people still love watching short films. In the age of short attention spans and media glut, a wild, weird, and / or wonderful short can cause a sensation. Because technology continues to change at such a rapid pace, this book doesn’t drill down in great detail on specifics like what kind of camera you should use. Having the latest, greatest camera doesn’t matter as much as On the set of fXM Short Beeker’s Crossing / Director: Robbie Consing / Photographer: Suzanne Hanover knowing what to do with the camera and what to put in front of it. This book helps you focus on what’s really important if you want to be a successful filmmaker. How you define being a “successful filmmaker” is up to you. It can be as simple as making a film you’re proud of. It can be getting millions of hits online. Or maybe it’s making a short that turns into a multiple Oscar-winning feature (e.g., Whiplash). Anything and everything is possible. Don’t forget that South Park started life as a short film — and its creators are millionaires many times over from the subsequent TV series, movie, and merchandising deals. Talk about making it big with a short! When I got my job producing short films for fXM: Movies from Fox (now called FX Movie Channel or FXM), my bosses at the cable network stated their goal for the shorts: get them into the Sundance Film Festival. We were successful four years in a row.

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By the way, if your goal is to get into Sundance, you should know the odds: in 2016, 8,712 shorts were submitted to the festival and only 72 were selected. Every year, I preview the official selections and pick five as “must-see” to review for Indiewire. I can tell you, the bar is high. However, if you pay attention to the advice contained within the pages of this On the street at the Sundance Film Festival guide (some of which comes directly from the Sundance programmers), you’ll have a leg up over the competition. The other mandate at the Fox-owned movie channel was to pick filmmakers who would go on to work for the studio. I’m extremely proud that that the directors I hired have gone on to helm many studio and indie features including Juno, Blades of Glory, Winter in the Blood, and The Night of the White Pants. But it’s episodic television where they’ve really made their mark, directing episodes of Scandal, Grey’s Anatomy, Castle, Parenthood, American Crime, Burn Notice, The Office, The Carmichael Show, Casual, and other acclaimed series. I originally decided to write this guide back in 2004 because after producing 19 short films that played over 150 festivals worldwide and won 30+ awards, I learned a lot about the short film world from my own experiences and from talking to other filmmakers.

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Since writing the first and second editions of this book, I’ve continued to gather insider information about short filmmaking. Since 2006, I’ve interviewed filmmakers and written about short films and festivals for Indiewire. I’ve attended the Sundance ShortsLabs and moderated filmmaker panels at countless short film festivals. Not surprisingly, the panel I moderated with actresses-turnedshort-film directors Jennifer Morrison of Once Upon a Time and House fame and Karen Gillan from Doctor Who and Guardians of the Galaxy attracted the most attention. During the panel, Jennifer Morrison revealed her secret filmmaking weapon to combat having very little preproduction time: she wrote a detailed director’s statement that she distributed to her crew before production so everyone involved in the shoot was on the same page. This guide is filled with these sorts of tips I’ve collected from other filmmakers over the years. When I first started producing, I realized all the best information was passed on from On the red carpet for the UCLA Alumni short film screening veteran filmmakers to newcomers. In putting together this guide, I collected filmmaker war stories and helpful tips to share with you as you embark on your short filmmaking adventure. Although my on-set experience has only taken place in Los Angeles, teaching filmmaking workshops across the

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United States, Canada, and New Zealand has exposed me to a wider perspective. After years of teaching making and marketing the short at UCLA Extension, I currently teach UCLAx’s low-budget feature-filmmaking class. Every quarter my international students remind me that the filmmaking experience differs slightly from country to country but the basics are universal. In so many ways, filmmaking is filmmaking — whether you’re using a Panavision camera in Hollywood or an iPhone in Hong Kong. As you’ll see, this book contains ten chapters. The first four are designed to help you make an educated decision about what kind of short you should make. They cover what defines a short film, what defines a good short, and how a film defines its maker. The fifth chapter reveals the seven golden rules of successful short filmmaking. Chapter Six begins with story development and ends with post-production. In it, you’ll discover the two things that ruin most shorts (bad acting and bad sound) and the two things that can cripple your film if you hope to do anything commercial with it (lack of proper paperwork and unlicensed music). The next two chapters focus on what to do with your finished film and how to use it to launch your career. The final two chapters conclude with a handy listing of fifty tips and ten essential “how-to’s” that every short filmmaker should know. “Kim not only taught me the nuts and bolts of short filmmaking, more importantly she gave me a strong sense of empowerment,” said Lexi Alexander, who was a student of mine at UCLA Extension and went on to direct an Oscar-nominated short, a Charlie Hunnam–starring feature, and most recently episodes of the TV series Arrow.

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“Her words, ‘You are the studio,’ kept ringing in my ear while I was in the middle of shooting the short that set off my career.” Although much has changed since earlier editions of this book were published, my goal for Making It Big in Shorts remains the same: to empower you to make an amazing film that will set off your career. Let’s get started.

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CHAPTER 1

SO YOU WANT   TO MAKE A SHORT

Using the Canon Zoom 250 Super-8 camera

THE ONLY PERSON WHO CAN STOP YOU IS YOU

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elebrating his twelfth Academy Award nomination (for his performance in About Schmidt), Jack Nicholson confessed a shocking secret desire in an Interview magazine profile. Jack Nicholson — of Easy Rider, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and The Shining fame — wished he could come up with an idea for a great short film. Even Jack Nicholson is not immune to the lure of short filmmaking! Of course, in Nicholson’s case, it

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isn’t surprising. Sure, he’s a big old movie star. But he’s also a graduate of the Roger Corman school of low-budget filmmaking, a longtime reader of O. Henry stories, and a fan of the student films that play occasionally on cable or public television. What’s stopping Mr. Nicholson from making a short? Certainly it isn’t money. And it isn’t because he doesn’t have any ideas. Jack’s been around long enough to know that ideas come to you all the time. No, Nicholson won’t be making a short anytime soon because he has too much respect for the format. Acknowledging that making a good short is something to be proud of, Jack is going to stay out of the pool rather than recklessly jumping in feet first to see what kind of splash he might make.

COME ON, IT’S EASY In this digital era, making a short is absurdly easy. First, you need to come up with an idea. Easy. Next, you have to round up the necessary people, places, and things to turn your idea into a reality. Also easy. The hard part, as Jack Nicholson wisely pointed out, is making a short you can be proud of. Almost every filmmaker adds an apologetic commentary when showing their work: “The sound isn’t quite right here,” or “I wish I had moved the camera more in this sequence,” or “I know she’s no Meryl Streep, but my sister isn’t half bad in this scene, don’t you think?” Forget about minor disappointments. Think big picture. Just making a short is a big accomplishment. You’ve crossed the treacherous bridge that many never traverse. On one side are those who want to be filmmakers but

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haven’t yet made anything, on the other side are those who have made a short and therefore are filmmakers. “Just do it. Just pick up a camera and start shooting something.” That is the advice Titanic and Avatar director James Cameron gave aspiring filmmakers in an online interview. “Don’t wait to be asked because nobody is going to ask you, and don’t wait for the perfect conditions because they’ll never be perfect. You just have to take the plunge and just start shooting something, even if it’s bad. You can always hide it, but you will have learned something.” Adam McKay, Academy Award–nominated director of The Big Short and cofounder of Funny or Die, gave similar advice at a DGA symposium in 2016. “Shoot. Shoot stuff. Put it up online. Don’t wait for your opportunity, don’t wait for your connection. Grab cameras, there are tons of them now, they’re cheap. The Internet is an amazing thing. If you’re in some weird town in North Dakota, start a film festival. Just shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot. Don’t wait for it to come to you.” What’s amazing is there is no one to stop you. You don’t need an official piece of paper such as a license or a diploma. You don’t need a “greenlight” from the head of a major motion picture studio. You don’t even need to be related to Francis Ford Coppola — although that never hurts.

EVERYONE IS WELCOME TO GIVE IT A TRY Are you very old? Very young? Female? Asian? Disabled? Gay? Great! While Hollywood may practice ageism, sexism, or racism when it comes to hiring filmmakers

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to helm studio pictures, there’s nothing stopping anyone from directing a short. The resulting diversity is one of the reasons why the most exciting ideas and groundbreaking work happen in short films. In fact, it even works to your advantage if you are not a heterosexual white male because there are countless film festivals around the world which champion films by women, Asians, kids, etc. So who makes short films? Everyone! „„ BIG-NAME DIRECTORS If you are in this league, the rest of us salute you for bringing attention to the short format. Thanks for reminding the world that shorts are an art form worthy of your time and effort. You might, however, not enjoy the experience of making a short. Many feature directors discover that it’s easier to do a good job on a big studio picture because you have the money, resources, and screen time to make it work. Limited screen time requires completely different storytelling muscles. Comparisons to writing a short story versus a novel (or running the 100-yard dash versus a marathon) apply. Some filmmakPublicity still from Hotel Chevalier, courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures / Director: Wes Anderson ers delight in the format — Wes Anderson comes immediately to mind. Many feature filmmakers direct commercials or take on commissioned shorts as a way to keep their skills sharp

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while earning a big paycheck. In 2015, Martin Scorsese directed a 15-minute short called The Audition, which starred Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, and Brad Pitt, with a budget of $70 million. It was paid for by a chain of casinos. „„ FEATURE DIRECTORS You’d think the endgame would be graduating from shorts to features, but many feature film directors delight in making shorts. “Although I plan on making many more features, I’ll always continue making shorts,” says Darius Clark Monroe, who was named one of Filmmaker magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film in 2014. “I love working within a confined time limit. Most of my shorts are influenced by dreams, moments, and feelings. The short format allows me to explore styles and technique in an unconventional way. It’s also great practice as a director. I’m able to discover new things about my voice and craft. Shorts also force me outside of my comfort zone. I’m allowed to play without the numerous pressures of a feature.” „„ MOVIE STARS You’d be surprised by the number of Hollywood A-Listers who have stepped behind the camera to make a short: Sandra Bullock, Jennifer Aniston, Brie Larson, and Ben Affleck, to name just a few. If you’re interested in becoming a hyphenate (actor-director), making a short is the quickest way to test the waters. Hot off his success in No Country for Old Men, Josh Brolin directed his young daughter in a 16-minute drama called X. “To me, the whole

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reason you do a short is to understand your strengths and weaknesses. It’s about the storytelling,” Brolin told a Variety reporter at the HollyShorts Film Festival. „„ INDUSTRY PROFESSIONALS Sometimes it seems like everyone who works in Hollywood (aka the Industry) wants to direct. If you’re a working professional, you have the advantage of invaluable connections and favors you can call in. Don’t save them up for later. If you want to make the transition, now’s the time to capitalize on all the goodwill you’ve built up over the years. Remember, your colleagues want you to succeed so that you can hire them when you’re directing big money features. They want to help you join the big leagues. Let them. „„ PEOPLE WITH NO INDUSTRY CONNECTIONS The actual number of established directors, actors, or Industry professionals making shorts is very small. The majority of people picking up a camera are regular everyday people with a burning passion to make a film. Don’t think because you live in Nebraska and don’t know anyone in Hollywood that you can’t make a successful short film. If you review the list of filmmakers who get their shorts into the Sundance Film Festival, you’ll be amazed by how many of them you’ve never heard of. Because they’re regular people with no Hollywood connections. People just like you. YouTube and social media have made the entire exhibition process much more democratic, where anyone anywhere can film something and

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share it with the world within minutes. Why not join the ranks? „„ STUDENTS Students still make up a large percentage of the short Students attending UCLA Extension filmmaking class filmmaking population. USC graduate David Birdsell says, “It’s tough to break into filmmaking, to just decide, ‘I’m going to be a professional filmmaker!’ If you go to film school, you immediately are in this little community of aspiring filmmakers. You have access to your fellow students and the equipment. You’re also learning from each other and helping each other on projects. So it’s not as lonely and daunting a prospect.”

THE MAJOR STUMBLING BLOCKS TO MAKING SHORT FILMS If it’s so easy to make a film and anyone can do it, why aren’t millions of shorts being made every year? The answer is lack of motivation — and money. Motivation shouldn’t be your problem. You’ve invested in reading this book, and I have full confidence you’ll make a film not long after you turn the last page. Money is a hurdle that you can overcome by making something that doesn’t require a big cash outlay. U.K.-based director Ben Aston made a five-minute Chat­ Roulette-based short Russian Roulette for under £50 (about

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$72 American) while in preproduction for another film. “Proof that the best effect your astro-short will ever need is a smart writer (Oli Fenton) and great actors (Bec Hill, Stewart Lockwood),” says Aston. The truth is moviemaking at all levels — from the most guerilla indie shoots to the most bloated Hollywood blockbusters — requires some funding. Although you will learn as you make your way through this book that the short filmmaker’s favorite word is “free,” the inescapable fact remains that it does cost money to make and market a successful short film. The good news is it doesn’t take nearly as much money as it takes to make and market a feature. The reality is how much money you need to make a short depends on (a) the nature of your project, (b) how much you can get for free, and (c) how much you are willing to spend. If you can get away with it, don’t spend anything. Cheap is not a bad word. Beg, borrow, and steal. Cash in every favor owed. Barter services. Raise money on Kickstarter. Pass the hat at parties. Do anything you can do to make your film. After all, you want to be a short filmmaker, don’t you?

SURVEY THE FIELD Too many filmmakers cling to the outdated idea that to be successful they have to make a short that could be mistaken for a feature film. In their minds, that means 30 minutes (or longer), with Hollywood-quality production value. Certainly, amazing work has been done in the 20-to50-minute range. A film like Sparks — 24 minutes long, based on an Elmore Leonard short story, starring Carla

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Gugino, and directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt — feels like a mini-feature. When asked at a screening how he got the money to fund his expensive-looking proPublicity still from Sparks, courtesy of Wholphin / Director: Joseph Gordon-Levitt duction, Gordon-Levitt mumbled, “Well, I was on a sitcom as a kid.” It’s wrong to assume a “good” film has to be a mini-­ feature. Not only are half-hour pieces financially daunting, they aren’t necessarily the best use of the format. Before you begin thinking about making your own masterpiece, do yourself a favor and check out what other filmmakers have done. You’ll discover that with a little innovation and a lot of creativity, you can make a film that will blow everyone away, and it doesn’t have to be more than a few minutes long.

WHAT DEFINES A SHORT Because shorts can incorporate so many different kinds of filmmaking (narrative, experimental, live-action, animation, documentary, mixed media, etc.), the best way to define a short is by running time. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences classifies a short film as “an original motion picture that has a running time of not more than 40 minutes including all credits.” The Sundance Film Festival application spells out a running time of 50 minutes or less, including credits. The Screen Actors Guild defines a short to be under 35 minutes and under $50,000.

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Practically speaking, anything over 20 minutes is on the long side. Those films are sometimes jokingly called “mediums.” For festivals, online, television, and even potential theatrical Publicity still from Devil Doll, courtesy of Jarl Olsen / distribution, shorter is Director: Jarl Olsen / Photographer: Phil Parmet definitely better. In my years of reviewing shorts for Indiewire, I’ve realized the majority of shorts that really worked had a running time of 12 minutes. When I was making shorts for Fox’s movie channel, we aimed for 10 minutes or less. At that time, there was an American short that played in competition at Cannes called Devil Doll — it was 50 seconds long.

SEE FOR YOURSELF To check out what filmmakers are doing right now, go to film festivals, local short film showcases, the iTunes short film homepage, VOD, Amazon, YouTube, Vimeo, Funny or Die, or anywhere that plays shorts. As far as festivals go, you’ll discover the longer films are few and ghettoized in short film programs. The 15-minutes-or-less films are plentiful and sometimes get to play in front of the star-studded premieres or highly anticipated competition features. Many things will happen as you begin to view a wide variety of films. You’ll see many terrible shorts, which will inspire you in an “I can do much better than that!” way. You’ll also see amazing work that will make you aspire

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to be equally great. On the downside, it’s easy to get depressed when you realize many filmmakers have access to more money and better resources than you do. How can you compete? Easy answer: by making something unique. Remember, everyone sees top-of-the-line filmmaking every day in feature films and on television series. No one expects your little short to be in that same league. What viewers want to see is the unexpectedly wonderful and weird stuff that they can only see in shorts. “Twists!” says short film producer Joey Horvitz, who has been on the festival circuit with a series of shorts produced by the Lexus car company and the Weinstein Company. “You see a lot of twists in short films because the filmmakers only have a little bit of time to deliver a story.” Australian filmmaker Nash Edgerton is the king of the twists, with his shorts Spider and Bear piling on one shocking plot turn immediately after another. Horvitz cautions filmmakers not to hang everything on the twist. “Support that twist with great character development, great story development, and everything else that Filming princesses in suburbia a movie needs.” “What I like best about short films is the world that they take me to,” says Sundance Film Festival Director of Programming Trevor Groth. “People take chances with shorts that they can’t do with features. You’ll see stuff

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that you couldn’t imagine, that you never thought you’d see on film, and there it is!” “Shorts can be really weird,” summed up Kung Fu Panda 3 director Jennifer Yuh Nelson when hosting a screening of Oscar nominated shorts in 2016. “Everyone I know wants to make a short.”

RECAP •• Making a short is something to be proud of. Just ask Jack Nicholson. The hard part is making a good short. •• Everyone makes shorts — famous directors, movie stars, entertainment industry professionals, feature filmmakers, students, and regular folk from all over the world. •• No one can stop you from becoming a filmmaker. All you need is motivation and money. •• Shorts can range from less than a minute to less than 50 minutes. Shorter is better. Twelve minutes seems to be the sweet spot for festival films. Ten minutes or less is something to aim for. •• Pick up a camera and shoot something. Make something weird and unique. Title the piece. Congratulations, you are now a filmmaker.

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Your Short & You

CHAPTER 2

YOUR SHORT &   YOU

Filmmaker with the poster for her short film at the American Cinematheque’s 11th Annual Focus on Female Directors screening

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very year I give a PowerPoint presentation to soon-to-graduate students at the USC School of Cinematic Arts during Career Week. The topic: the difference between “you” and “your short.” It’s important to remember that the film you make brands you. Shorts are a way of establishing your persona

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as a filmmaker. Filmmaker David Birdsell made a short featuring a pug that got a lot of Industry attention; Hollywood studio executives offered him projects featuring canines. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t particularly interested in dogs. He was stamped “makes films with dogs.” I know another filmmaker whose debut short was basically a joke put on film. She was dismayed when no one took her feature drama script seriously. “If you’re making shorts to get into features, make a film that is similar in tone and spirit to the feature you want to make,” says writer-director Amy Talkington. “That is so incredibly important. I never stopped and said, ‘I want to do films about young people’ — that’s just what I did. I made several shorts about teenagers. So that’s who I am. That’s the kind of projects people bring to me. Because I’m making films about young people. And that’s fine. But an intelligent person who is shaping her career might stop and think about it, and create a short similar in tone to her first feature script. That’s a problem that I’ve had with a feature script that I’ve recently gone out with. They say, ‘Yeah, we see she’s a great filmmaker, and it’s a great script, but she hasn’t made a film that really reflects this tone.’ And I just want to strangle them! Because, look, you can see that I’ve nailed four or five different tones, why wouldn’t I be able to nail this one?! But that’s what they say. They really need to see it. So ideally that’s what you go for.”

STOP, LOOK, LISTEN Before you begin your filmmaking career, stop and make an assessment of who you are as a person and where you

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want to go as a filmmaker. Once you know that (and that’s big!), look at what you actually can do. First, list five feature films you wished you had made. What do they have in common? This exercise should help define your roadmap. If you wanted to make a film similar to those films, what would you need? If you like dramatic character pieces, you’ll need a strong story, On the set of fXM Short Birthday / Director: Greg Brooker / good dialogue, and Photographer: Sylvia Abumuhor talented actors. If you like war movies, the local army surplus supply store will provide you with a treasure trove of props and costumes.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YOU AND YOUR SHORT Similar to how Dr. Frankenstein and his monster are so intertwined that most people think the monster is called Frankenstein, a film and its maker are irrevocably bound together. YOU: Have talent YOUR SHORT: Is a demonstration of that talent No one will hire you if they don’t know what you can do. They need to see your work. And good work begets work. Many years ago Vin Diesel wrote / directed / starred in a 20-minute short called Multi-Facial that allowed him

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to show off his acting chops. He credits the short for getting him cast in his big break, Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan. Another Spielberg story: A young U.K. filmmaker named James Curran posted his own version of the Tintin title sequence on Vimeo. “Spielberg spotted it, called him up, and hired him,” reports Vimeo Festival + Awards Director Jeremy Boxer. It’s not just actors and directors who demo their talent in shorts. Writers get gigs off shorts, as do producers and crew. YOU: Have a unique voice YOUR SHORT: Is an expression of that voice Don’t regurgitate what you’ve seen before. We don’t need more Quentin Tarantino or Wes Anderson wannabes. It’s your unique voice (or vision) that will get you attention. “We are constantly looking for new talent, new voices, doing things in a stylistically different way,” says Sundance Film Festival Senior Programmer Kim Yutani. She uses as an example the web series Drunk History, an episode of which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. “Try to figure out who you are as an artist and what you uniquely have to offer the world,” Jay Duplass reminded filmmakers at a Sundance ShortsLab. Animators, in particular, need to make their own mark. Whether it’s the animation style employed or the type of story told, it’s that “voice” that attracts attention and future work. Norwegian-born Canadian animator Torill Kove has both a distinct animation style and narrative voice, which has resulted in two Oscar nominations (My

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Grandmother Ironed the King’s Shirts and Me and My Mouton) and one win (The Danish Poet). Speaking of being unique, try to come Publicity still from The Danish Poet, courtesy of the National Film up with a unique Board of Canada / Director: Torill Kove title for your short. You’re creative, your short’s title should reflect this. It also helps your short stand out from the crowd. The wonderful thing about short film titles (as opposed to feature film titles) is there is no fear of having one so long that it can’t fit on the movie theater marquee — because short film titles never appear on marquees! Your title can be as long and as funky as you want. In fact, a unique title sparks interest. Would you want to see a 15-minute-long short called I Killed My Lesbian Wife, Hung Her on a Meat Hook, and Now I Have a Three-Picture Deal at Disney? Probably so. And I didn’t even have to tell you that Ben Affleck directed it. Not that your title has to be a block long. It just has to be memorable. Noah Edelson made a short in which a kid spends the first minute of the film jumping up and down on a manhole cover chanting “78.” Noah called the piece 78. Andrew Busti and Sebastian del Castillo made a super cool experimental film consisting of faces and hands pressed against the Xerox machine glass. The title deleriouspink (delirious intentionally spelled wrong) makes that short even more memorable. Having a unique title also helps with hashtag promotion of your film. For example, I once donated to a Kickstarter short film project, Snow. I usually tweet about

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my donation to help the filmmakers spread the word, but #Snow gets lost in the Twitterverse. Something like, “I donated to #deleriouspink — won’t you?” makes much more impact. YOU: Have a persona YOUR SHORT: Should be not inconsistent with your persona Your short does not have to directly mirror your persona, but it shouldn’t be diametrically opposed. Think about Spike Lee. Now watch his NYU student film Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads on YouTube. They go together, right? Watch Tim Burton’s CalArts student films. You’d expect someone who looks and talks like Tim Burton to have made those. Sofia Coppola’s Lick the Star, a stylish 14-minute black-and-white film about a clique of schoolgirls, reeks of the woman who is Marc Jacobs’s muse. Again, your film doesn’t have to reflect exactly who you are. You can be a biker chick who makes Star Wars parody films. Just be aware that people viewing your film will have preconceived notions about you based on your film. YOU: Have a certain buzz as a filmmaker YOUR SHORT: Creates or amplifies that buzz Every year I co-program an assortment of female-directed shorts for the American Cinematheque. In 2013, we showed shorts by Julie Delpy, Ondi Timoner, Jill Soloway, and Brie Larson. Soloway had not yet created Transparent, and Larson was three years away from winning her Oscar for Room. Did their shorts grease their way to their subsequent success? They were both working professionals

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before making their shorts. But having their shorts debut at Sundance certainly didn’t decrease their profile. All filmmakers have a certain level of buzz about them. Before you make Filmmakers at American Cinematheque’s 8th Annual Focus on a film, you have the Female Directors screening buzz of potential. Your future looks bright — until proven otherwise. Students also have a bright future ahead of them, with the added endorsement of an institution selecting them over many other applicants and devoting resources to educating them. In Los Angeles, the Industry showcases of USC, UCLA, AFI, LMU, CalArts, and Chapman student films are packed with executives and agents scouting the next generation of filmmakers. Students’ profiles can be raised higher if their film wins a Student Academy Award. John Lasseter, Pete Docter, Robert Zemeckis, Trey Parker, and Spike Lee all first made their mark that way. Film festivals selecting your short gives you and your film a resounding stamp of approval. Someone besides your mom thinks you’re talented. Make sure to share your good news with everyone. This is how buzz grows. You win an award — any award from any festival — you have now escalated to being an #AwardWinningFilmmaker. Take a victory lap and spread the word around all your social media accounts.

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YOU: Know what you want to do next YOUR SHORT: Not necessarily tied to what you want to do next, but it should help people understand what you’re capable of doing with your next project Some people make shorts with the intention of making the feature version of the short next. What you want to do next doesn’t have to be directly tied to your short, but you do need to have something you want to do next. People will see your short, appreciate your talent, and want to help you on the next step in your career. If you don’t have a vision for what you want to do next, it’s hard for that to materialize. “Everyone’s going to ask you what you’re working on next,” says Sharon Badal, who is the short film programmer for the Tribeca Film Festival. “They want to know what you have ‘in development.’” Jim Cummings made a single-shot comedy, Thunder Road, which won the 2016 Sundance Grand Jury Prize. He used the format as a proof of concept, and a company called Full Screen paid him $150,000 to make half a dozen more shorts in that style. It may take longer than you expect to get to the stage where you get to make the kind of films you originally listed out as “I wish I made these.” At least you’re doing everything you can to set off Filmmaker with her director of photography and her film print at the American Cinematheque’s on the right path. 3rd Annual Focus on Female Directors screening

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RECAP •• Work begets work. By making a short, you are making opportunities come to be. •• Your work brands you as a filmmaker. Make sure it’s a brand that helps you rather than hinders you. •• Everything about your short should reflect your creativity, especially the title. •• Having a unique voice will attract notice. •• Even before you make a film, you have a level of buzz as a filmmaker.

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