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C H A P T E R 2 : V E N I , V I DI , V IC I: S U RV E Y I NG T H E F I E L D 15
C H A P T E R 3 : T H I N K L I K E A SHORT F I L M M A K E R 31
C H A P T E R 4 : SE V E N SE C R E T S F OR SUC C E S S 41
C H A P T E R 6 : T U R N I NG YOU T U BE I N T O M E T U BE 69
C H A P T E R 7: R I SI NG T O T H E 4 8 - HOU R C H A L L E NGE 81
C H A P T E R 8 : BE T ON M E : GE T T I NG F U N DE D 93
C H A P T E R 10 : BU D GE T I NG : E V E RY T H I NG F OR F R E E 117
C H A P T E R 11: W H Y CA ST I NG C OU N T S T H E MO ST 129
C H A P T E R 18 : F E ST I VA L S T H A T M A T T E R 219
C H A P T E R 19 : WOR K I NG T H E F E ST I VA L C I R C U I T 233
C H A P T E R 21: 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 267
VI
PART I:
WELCOME
TO THE
SHORT-
FILM
WORLD
CHAPTER 1
SO YOU
WANT
TO MAKE
A SHORT
C
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 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 long-
time reader of O. Henry stories, and a fan of the student films
that play on the Independent Film Channel (IFC).
What’s stopping Mr. Nicholson from making a short? Certainly
it isn’t money. Although that’s the major stumbling block for most
wannabes, all Jack would have to do is put his courtside Lakers
seats on eBay and he’d have instant funding for a pretty swanky
little film. 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
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S O YO U WA N T T O M A K E A S H O R T
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M A K I N G I T B I G I N S H O R T S ! A D E L M A N
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S O YO U WA N T T O M A K E A S H O R T
! MOVIE STARS
Hot off his success in No Country for Old Men, Josh Brolin stepped
behind the camera to direct his young daughter in a 16-minute
HD drama called X. “To me, the whole 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.
“I love making short films, and I love watching them,“ actor
Matthew Modine told me when I interviewed him shortly after
his latest short I Think, I Thought played the 2008 Tribeca Film
Festival. “With this new technology of HD filmmaking and the
rather affordable Panasonic HVX 200, my friend and producing
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! INDUSTRY PROFESSIONALS
Everyone wants to direct, but it’s hard to break free from the
industry perception of you. When choreographer Adam Shankman
decided to make the transition, studio executives must have
scoffed, “He’s just a dancer. How do we know he can direct?”
Shankman proved it in 1998 by creating a slick 20-minute short
called Cosmo’s Tale. Now he’s directing big studio pictures star-
ring Jennifer Lopez (The Wedding Planner), Steve Martin (Bringing
Down the House), and Adam Sandler (Bedtime Stories).
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 good will you’ve built up over the
years. Remember, your colleagues want you to succeed so that
you can hire them when you’re directing Adam Sandler features.
They want to help you join the big leagues. Let them.
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S O YO U WA N T T O M A K E A S H O R T
something and share it with the world within minutes. Why not
join the ranks?
! STUDENTS
Of course, students still make up a large percentage of the short-
filmmaking population. University of Southern California (USC)
School of Cinema-Television graduate David Birdsell points out,
“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 imme-
diately 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.” In this digital era,
it’s usually the students who are still shooting on film, because of
school requirements.
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S O YO U WA N T T O M A K E A S H O R T
! Some film schools own your work. Who owns George Lucas’s
student films? USC.
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David Birdsell adds, “No one can teach you how to make a good
film, but film school can teach you a lot of things that go into good
film. Classes on screenwriting and cinematography are useful. But
you can’t really learn filmmaking without doing it. And film school
provides an opportunity to do it on a small scale without a lot at
stake. Other than tuition. Which, in my case at USC, was high.”
Can’t afford USC? Your local college probably offers more
reasonably priced film-oriented classes you can take. The two
filmmakers who made one of the first Internet sensations,
405, went to California State University, Long Beach (major-
ing in film production) and the University of Kansas (studying
industrial design!).
! ART SCHOOL
Especially for animators. “At art school, what was so great
was that everybody was so supportive and not competitive
with each other,” raves Eileen O’Meara. “It was, ‘How are you
expressing yourself? How can we do it better? Let me help you.
Borrow my paint brush.’ I loved it.”
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S O YO U WA N T T O M A K E A S H O R T
RECAP
! Everyone makes shorts — famous directors, movie stars, indus-
try professionals, 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.
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! Pick up a camera and shoot something. Title the piece. You are
now a filmmaker.
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CHAPTER 2
VENI, VIDI,
VICI:
SURVEYING
THE FIELD
T
oo many filmmakers cling to the outdated idea that to be
successful they have to make a short that could be mis-
taken 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 30- to 50-minute
range. But it’s wrong to assume that a “good” film has to be a
mini-feature. Not only are half-hour pieces financially daunt-
ing, 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 with the
genre. You’ll discover that with a little innovation and a lot of
creativity, one can make a film that will blow everyone away,
and it doesn’t have to be more than a few minutes long.
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V E N I , V I D I , V I C I : S U RV E Y I N G T H E F I E L D
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1
THE LANDLORD
Filmmaker: Adam McKay
Year: 2007
Running time: 2 minutes
Both Adam McKay and Will Ferrell have day jobs as Hollywood
heavyweights. Perhaps you’ve heard of McKay’s previous direc-
torial efforts, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. But having already-
established feature careers didn’t stop the duo from joining the
short-film online revolution and founding the website FunnyorDie
as a home for comedy shorts on the Web. The jewel in the
FunnyorDie.com crown is a two-minute piece starring McKay’s
toddler daughter Pearl (who also happens to be Jeremy Piven’s
niece) as Ferrell’s foul-mouthed, beer-toting landlady.
Although the specifics are very Hollywood, the production is
actually very true to organic no-budget filmmaking. Location:
director’s home. Actors: his best friend and his daughter. Shoot:
one day (45 minutes, in fact). The film was an immediate pop
cultural phenomenon, getting more than seven million views in
24 hours and earning massive mainstream press attention. In
less than a year, it became the third most watched online video
ever, with 45 million hits. “On the Web you do ideas you can’t
use anywhere else,” McKay told Wired Magazine in 2007. “Like,
a baby landlord would never work as a movie. We were excited
by getting this chance to goof around with those kinds of ideas.”
Unfortunately, McKay and Ferrell couldn’t shake their old school
Hollywood mentality and rushed into production with an ill-con-
ceived sequel. It flopped.
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SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS
Filmmakers: Trey Parker and Matt Stone
Year: 1995
Running time: 5 minutes
When I do workshops, I ask the participants how they would
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define the most successful short film of all time, encouraging them
to dream as big as possible. They often start out with the obvious
(Oscars, movie adaptations, Hollywood careers, Time magazine
covers, etc.), and then even grow more ambitious. I remember
one woman at a Filmmaker’s Alliance seminar yelled out, “They
erect statues in honor of my film.” It always amazes me no matter
how outrageous they think their suggestions are, one short film
has actually managed to achieve every thing they list, including
having statues made (if you consider cardboard standees in movie
lobbies or stuffed toys as the equivalent thereof). That short film
is inarguably the most financially and culturally successful short
film ever made, Spirit of Christmas, the five-minute piece of crude
animation that launched the South Park empire.
When television executive Brian Graden gave Trey Parker and
Matt Stone two thousand dollars to make a video Christmas card,
little did he know a pop cultural phenomenon would spring from
their crudely animated story of four foul-mouthed kids who have
to pick sides when Santa and Jesus have a showdown at the local
mall. Although the filmmakers didn’t plan it, the short was a de
facto pilot for the series, establishing everything from the South
Park location to the “killed Kenny” catch phrase. Here’s to hoping
that your short will be as creatively outrageous and outrageously
profitable as Spirit of Christmas! After all, the world needs more
statues erected in honor of short films.
3
MORE
Filmmaker: Mark Osborne
Year: 1999
Running time: 6 minutes
The perfect no-dialogue short
is a six-minute claymation
masterpiece about an elderly
corporate drone working on
a secret project that could
bring bliss to the world. The
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Star Wars Fan Films. As you might expect, the first entree into the
genre took place shortly after the original Star Wars was released.
Ernie Fosselius wrote and directed an intentionally super cheesy
and very funny flick that has a devoted following to this day.
How to explain Hardware Wars’ continued popularity?
“Filmmakers enjoy the joke (and see the potential for their
own work) of making something look ‘big’ with cheesy effects,
sets, and costumes,” surmises producer Michael Wiese. “They
are inspired by the insight that they can parody their favorite
films, characters, and TV shows. I even heard during a film fes-
tival panel a career strategy proposal that ‘you can get rich and
famous by making a parody of Star Wars!’ For me, I like that we
made something for nothing and it worked.”
The magic of Star Wars parody worked again in 1999 when
Joe Nussbaum retold Shakespeare in Love, substituting USC film
school student George Lucas as the hero struggling for inspira-
tion. Unlike its predecessor, George Lucas in Love is not a cheap
film. High production value, a strong story, good acting, and a
rich score make it heads and shoulders above the average Star
Wars parody. In fact, when George Lucas in Love was first released
on home video, it sold more copies on Amazon than Lucas’s most
recent Star Wars installment.
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TANGHI ARGENTINI
Filmmaker: Guido Thys
Year: 2006
Running Time: 13 minutes
This office-based comedy in which the mild-mannered hero asks
a male co-worker to help him learn to dance in preparation for a
blind date is the kind of delightful modern fairytale, boasting an
excellently structured storyline and a glossy 35mm production
value, that delights audiences, festival jurors, and the Academy
of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. To tell more of the plot would
only ruin the film’s twists and turns. Nominated for an Academy
Award, the Belgium Tanghi Argentini lost to France’s Le Mozart
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RECAP
! Shorts can be any length — but 15 minutes or less is ideal.
! If your “original idea” has been done before, make sure you have
a good twist — and that yours is better than your predecessors’.
! Shorts are the perfect venue for trying out different filmmaking
or storytelling techniques. Clichés = bad, experimentation =
good!
! Make a short that people will still want to watch decades after
you made it. That’s the true definition of a successful short.
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