Short Film

Short films act as a "calling card" for potential filmmakers and, sometimes, for the screenwriter. Generally, you can't really sell a short screenplay (at least, not for any substantial amount of money) because there is no real market for it.

The only one who will pay what they can for it is someone who wants to be a director but really has little or no writing ability. And they've finally come to realize it.

If you write a short film and you intent to get it done, choose your people very carefully or you are simply going to waste your time and your short screenplay.

You need a competent director (and that generally means more than a guy who has shot a music video or directed one stage play) and a competent editor. The best directors are usually good film editors.

Take a look at what they have done in the past. And ask some good basic questions. Can they storyboard? Do they storyboard everything first? What is their anticipated shooting ratio? Do they know what a shooting ratio is? Do they know and UNDERSTAND the 180 degree rule? Screen direction?

What about acting? Do they know anything about acting? Have they studied acting at all? How do they work with actors?

Short films biggest market is short film festivals. (And I use the term markets loosely because your not going to make any money there. In fact, it'll cost you money.) So you want to be sure that the film gets you noticed.

As a writer, a short film can provide you with producing & production experience and take you to film festivals, where you can network and enjoy seeing your film on a big screen in front of a large audience.

But, as a screenwriter, a short film will have little impact on forwarding your career. Conversely, short films can definitely give a boost to an aspiring director. Film is a director's medium - even more so with the short film.

A writer needs to have feature length screenplays to advance his film career.

The experience of shooting a short film could be invaluable, but the potential of it paving the way toward a professional writing career is slim to none. So keep your goals realistic.

Take a look at what they have doene in the past. Do you like it?

As an exercise in creativity - it's a fun workout. Some people are just overwhelmed by the concept of creating a full length feature. You have to master the same 'chops' for a short - but the duration is manageable. Can you tell a compelling story in, ten pages? Fifteen? Something that will hold the viewers/readers interest and keep them watching? (Some would argue that short forms of all the arts are more demanding - and there's something to that)

You can list shorts on INKTIP, for free, and there are directors looking for them. There isn't any money to be made - none to speak of, but it CAN be a way to connect with directors and productions companies - who might like your work and ask you for more.

And of course, there's always the 'extended' pay-off. You come up with a really great, tight short. Then your mind starts thinking about what happened 'before' or 'after' - and before you know it - you DO have a feature.

I'd agree that the short format won't advance you far in screenwriting features, but many features DO begin as novellas or short stories (the average movie doesn't have TIME to do a full novel's worth of story either, often)

If you're already in prose fiction, have you considered taking your "short film idea" and making it into a short story first, and THEN adapting/expanding it into a screenplay?

A published story makes the idea more marketable even as a film adaptation -- it's PROVEN its value -- which sets it ahead of most spec screenplays.

Secondly, almost every region in the country has area filmmakers ... and many of the filmmakers would KILL to have a quality story/script to work from. (True, many fancy themselves writers/directors -- I do too -- but the comment above is true: many Directors and actors would LUV to work from a great script rather than whatever they were forced to create themselves just to have something TO shoot)