Anatomy of a Short Film – Part I

Have you thought about writing, producing and/or directing a short film? I have and starting the project this week. With the current economical disasters, doing a short film is a fantastic venture to invest in, especially for those who want to break into the biz.

Short filmmaking will allow you to be credited as a writer, producer, director and be recognized as such all over the world and it starts like everything else…a dream and a great, compelling story. This is Part I of my adventure into making my first short film: the story and script. (I’ll be discussing all elements of making a short film in future articles.)

Although I’ve always been involved making major theatrical films with a side trip into a TV newsmagazine series, I never really considered doing a short film…until a couple of weeks ago when the most extraordinary true story fell into my lap. I took it as a sign that there’s an unexplainable reason that it’s me that must bring this inspirational story to the world and it’s an exciting opportunity for me to put a director’s hat on for the first time.

Want to know what it is? That’ll have to wait as I’m in the middle of securing the rights.

I’ve studied a lot lately about making short films and have watched several in the past few weeks, especially Oscar winners. The basics are the same as in features: you need a script, financing, crew, etc. But I believe that a short film is actually harder to write and must ultimately be written and filmed with a coherent, visual, meaningful, tighter story line than features (meaning there’s less flexibility to flush out story and character in short films).

Notice the word ‘story line’ is singular. That’s because in a short film and even a short story, the primary focus is on one character, one story, one complete arc, one event in a short amount of time. Sure, other characters are usually involved whose arcs can also be complete but, in a short film, it’s rare to see a secondary character with a complete arc unless it’s helped out by the protagonist.

So, as I begin writing my short film, I know that I must, unfortunately, discard so many magical, beautiful elements I want to include in this story. After all, I want my film to be 15 minutes or less. Better for festival consideration. That means, ideally, a 15-25 page script with money to spend in filming extra “potentially necessary” scenes that may be needed in editing. (I’ll be talking about financing and all other elements in future articles.)

The short of it all is that because of time limitations in a short film, your characters cannot save the world like they do in full-length features. But, they can save themselves from a moment of danger or potential death in a quick decision within a few minutes of story line that will inspire us to help save our world from disaster.

Interestingly, writing a short film script has helped tighten my feature length scripts. I encourage you to take a look at doing a short film project as one way to break in to the biz and heighten your talent in tightening your longer scripts or short stories.

I’d love to hear your comments on your experiences with making short films.