DEFINITION OF SHORT FILMS

ConventionsLength: 2-20 minutes

‘Charlie’ is around 16 minutes, whereas ‘2AM: The Smiling Man’ is around 4 minutes

Narrative Structure

As short films are obviously short, producers need to tell the story in a short space of time, so they have an easy format that audiences

can follow.Todorov had a theory that all narratives in

films have a set structure.Equilibrium-disruption-recognition-resolution.However, I believe this theory isn’t followed in

short films, as their isn’t enough time. I believe the structure is:Disruption-recognition

An example of this is ‘SKYPEMARE’, where a women spots a man in her friends house, and

it eventually ends up fatal.

PlotThey’re usually written about one

specific event. The content is simple and told in one time frame, which

makes it easier to follow. They base the film on one emotion, whether that be

love or feeling frightened, and it emphasises these feelings in order to get the audience to feel them. ‘NIGHT NIGHT NANCY’ follows this convention as its set in one time frame and aims

to get the audiences to feel frightened about dangerous intruders in your

house.

CharacterShort films have simplistic narratives because of the length of film, so this

also means their are only usually one or two main characters. It focuses on the character development, and how they react to current things, rather than a big explanation about their backstory. In ‘Pictured’ we are only introduced to one character, and we only discover

how she reacts to an increased suspicion into what the picture is doing,

there is no backstory, just a small character development.

InstitutionShort films have small budgets,

as they aren’t funded by an external company. This means there aren’t any recognisable idents, and their is sometimes only 1 simple opening credit,

which would just be the director. The end credits are also quite

short due to the lack of people in the production team. (Picture from the end credits of ‘Lights

Out’.