Short Films

Short films have always felt special and unique to me. I remember growing up watching Toy Story, Bugs Life, and The Incredibles very well, but I also remember Boundin', Jack-Jack Attack, and For the Birds. To me, the shorts which came bundled with the features on Pixar's DVD releases felt just as important and memorable as the main event. In some cases, the shorts were the main event; the original Pixar Short Films Collection was an exciting prospect when I first saw it. A collection of some of the more unique and early Pixar shorts on their very own DVD felt to be a particularly important artefact. For a long time, Pixar were praised for their preceding shorts. They were heralded as the ones keeping an old tradition alive. But as of late, Pixar seemed to have dropped the ball on their shorts. The past few theatrical had the short films noticeably absent, with the experience lessened as a result. This got me thinking, where should short films live? Where could they be housed, or formatted, in a way which made them attractive and accessible?

To begin, short films often feel like the black sheep of filmmaking despite being an essential step in every modern filmmaker’s back catalogue. Student or amateur films are often the very first projects filmmakers make on their way to success. It allows for creators to hone their professional ethic without (in many cases) being burdened by expectations, time, and budget. Overall, these amateur shorts can be seen to be the raw ambition and drive which creators possess before any thought of marketing, focus groups, and box office returns enters their mind. However, student films are rarely archived or made expressly accessible, unless of course said student goes on to become massively popular in later life, such is the case with the likes of Edgar Wright and the Safdie Brothers who have reasonably well thought of amateur work. For the most part though, student films get a bad wrap. Sure they may be unpolished, a little rough around the edges, but they can often be a strong showcase of local work, highlighting unheard of talent. Whilst digging through the near infinite amount of short amateur films may only appeal to the more serious cineasts, it can be unequivocally rewarding when you see a spark of uncorrupted creativity. For example, a friend of mine recently finished their first year university short film. It does feel like a student film; you can see areas where, with money and finesse, it would feel smoother; you can see where the pressure of motivation and cooperation has taken its toll on the final product. But the result is something which radiates imagination, enthusiasm, and care for both the filmmaking process as well as the appropriate reverence for the masters who came before. And to see this process, to see the first step, is nothing short of rare.

Outside of personal connections with creative people, short films, especially amateur ones, do feel difficult to get your hands on. Of course, awards do highlight a select few short films such as the Oscars having a short film category, but undoubtedly anyone outside of the academy would only recognise these shorts after they had already been announced. Other rare occasions result in a short gaining traction through social media aided word of mouth. Discarding these exceptions, short films often feel illusive. Seldom is the case that one jumps out at you without you actively searching for it. This line may seem paradoxical: the whole purpose of this article is to suggest that short films are hard to find, yet upon searching simply "short films" into YouTube, a whole slew of probably great candidates appear. But who really does that? Out of all the ever-expanding content on YouTube, who regularly searches for shorts when there are billions of other things vying for your attention. More importantly, who would place the same esteem to these shorts as they would a feature? YouTube, whilst effective at delivering, seems an ill-fit place for the traditional cinematic short. What YouTube does offer are, in my opinion, revolutionary filmmakers in the form of bloggers, animators, comedians, commentators, and editors. These are bona fide short films, but when I mention short films, you wouldn’t immediately class them as such. They are often instead branded as content, videos, or clips. Regardless of that, it is important to recognise these numerous creators as filmmakers of a new age operating in a new medium.

Going back to traditional shorts, a modern platform seems to be extremely well suited to showcasing them: streaming services. Places like Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime Video all are set up to deliver bite-sized pictures to audiences but usually in the form of television shows rather than individual short films. Disney+ recently did introduce an array of Pixar shorts ranging in content, style, and length to relative acclaim. Netflix however have had a series of short films running for quite some time going by the name of Love, Death, + Robots (LDR). LDR is produced by big names David Fincher and Tim Miller and, at the time of writing, consists of over 35 quality short films, each completely unrelated. In short film fashion, they range in style, content, and length however all have some sort of focus on a futuristic fantasy revolving around the three nouns which make up the series' title. Many people who I have spoken to have referred to it as just that: a series. As someone who only recently was made aware of the anthology, I couldn’t help but think that description a bit misplaced. It is structured like a series, but does not benefit from Netflix's patented binge-watching process. Netflix does also have a shorts section as a subheading of the films tab, but seldom do these choices permeate into the algorithm driven home screen selection. Also, assumedly because of Netflix's chosen format for it, LDR does not feature in this selection and is instead found under the series tab.

If any further case needs to be made to go out and find/watch shorts, consider the conventions of narrative cinema. Short films may abide by these rules, but they may, in an accepted way, choose not to. A filmmaker can be remarkably more free with how they choose to structure their film in terms of style, tone, narrative trajectory, genre, and topic. In a short film, it would not be out of place for a premise to be a philosophical dissection of art viewed through the eyes of a purpose-built tile cleaning machine. It would equally not feel strange to have a birds eye view of a fast-tracked zombie apocalypse. By unlocking these conventions, the creators of short films are unburdened by expectations of what a film should look like, should feel like, and should be like. Instead, a premise need only be interesting for five, ten, or fifteen minutes rather than ninety, verging on two hours. However, this freedom could be a double edged sword. Viewers could think that this experimentalism is bound to the short film format when in reality it shouldn't be. Film now feels inescapably dry in terms of content and style. What is popular now, with few exceptions, is coming from the same few companies releasing virtually the same film over and over again. It is only after ten years of this production-line style that the general consensus is that we have had enough. When we have access to quality and creativity on our doorsteps from anthologies like LDR, why should we settle for mediocrity and boredom from the big hitters we see in cinemas? It's not like they don't have the time, money, or people power to create something interesting. It's just the easy option to opt out, to play it safe. Short's simultaneous cannot benefit currently from the cinematic model of production and profit but equally reap the boons which these big budget blockbusters choose to leave on the cutting room floor.