who buys short film scripts?

and what does one usually make for them?

Well there is no selling market for short films, or it’s better to say that because it is very hard to get your money from a short film, filmmakers tend to use money elsewhere (bare necessities possibly). I should have said that usually there is no budget instead of saying there is no market. Shorts are… oh god should I say often produced by directors parents, post-produced by friends and funded by credit cards. Of course there are small production houses that are able to produce slates of short films but have you heard of commercially released short film. Extremely rear thing… can happen lets say on 70mm for Imax. Filmmakers do get grants though but now we are talking peanuts not money. Locally sponsorship is easier to come by, both from local businesses and government, but most people with the few exceptions make short films because it’s all they can get their hands on, until some great success in festival circuits.
Answering your question, short scripts are hard to sell and you will not get much. The price you would be negotiating in respect of the circumstances and would vary greatly. It would be more profitable thought if you were hired to write a script. If I was buying a short script now I’d fight for every penny.
One more thing, if your short script was set in exotic lavish location, requires considerable CGI input or was a period peace (like 15th century’s Venice society) I know nobody who would touch it, unless of course they had money to burn.

for many, the short film script is just an opportunity to get your story produced at a feasible fraction of the cost of a feature. it is then used as your calling card and a representation of your storytelling ability. forget about trying to make money of a short script. use it to get your foot in the door.

write on!

"Locally sponsorship is easier to come by, both from local businesses and government, but most people with the few exceptions make short films"

excuse my naeivity, I am new to all this. When you say sponsorship from local businesses do you mean mom and pop businesses, or my cities local branch of coca cola. On top of that, are you talking about product placement? and what angle do you approach them with? As far as local government goes, do you mean go to city hall and sweet talk them?

thanks.

When I say local government city hall could be a good place to start, local authorities often have funds for “cultural development” and so on. I suppose it all depends on what country we are talking about, but in one way or another most countries have similar schemes going, try and find out. For example in Germany there is Federal film board Filmforderungsanstalt (www.ffa.de) it’s a governmental organisation that funds foreign projects too. In Hamburg (www.ffhh.de ) you can get your script fully funded and it can be a feature or some documentary proposal and as I said before it’s all open to everybody, but then either the action of your script must take place in Hamburg, it must be produced in Hamburg or be about Hamburg. In UK there is a financial guide published by filmmaker’s community site www.shootingpeople.com it’s called “get your film funded”, current issue 2004. It’s not a novel (not an easy read) but it has all the information you need about funds in UK. I know nothing about USA or Canada, but I’m sure it must be the same. About local businesses… go for a walk down your highstreet, go inside talk to the people, show them what you do and ask if they can help… you’ll be surprised what you may find… and on the plus side next time you go to that restaurant the owner will be smiling as if you are his long lost relative. Don’t go to the chains like Pizza Hut, they can not help you. It all comes down to the amount of money you need. Anyway it’s a writers forum, so I do apologise for going out of the cave.
P.S.
Knowing what Dave Chapman is going to say in the next post, and he is dead right, go to Pizza Hut too, go everywhere, you never know, that is why you have to ask!

I had a really articulate post explaining why you should go to Pizza Hut after all, but the board ate it (apparently "some fields were missing"). I don't feel like retyping the whole thing.

In short, you can still get "in kind" donations from places like Pizza Hut. And free pizzas come in real handy when you have to feed the cast and crew of the short film they're working on for free. The more of these kinds of donations you can get, the less money you need to make the film anyway.

I've seen ads on craigslist and elsewhere from people "looking to buy" short scripts, but I've never looked into it. So I don't know if they were legit or not. I'd be surprised if they were.

I appreciate the tips.

retrostone, you must be clairvoyant.

You can list loglines for short scripts on www.inktip.com, which has the same access for features and is veiwed by hundreds of producers a day. It is free, unlike features, which costs money.

As for the going rate, generaly, you can expect 5-10% of the production budget. Since most shorts are done by students, producer/directors looking to establish a name and reel, then you can expect a relatively low budget (DVcam, minidv, 16mm).

Selling a short script for a writer would be for the same reasons as these producers. You won't get rich, but you will get your name out there.

You may consider self producing and entering them in festivals.