I agree. I’v always wanted to be a feature director but I suppose a short can be done “cheap” and “quickly” and tell a nice story. A few shorts to cut your teeth on and then bang out that indie feature

I’m tired of hearing everyone compare features and shorts. That’s like comparing a novel with a short story. It’s two totally separate things. A short can cost more than a feature a feature more than a short. The creator’s vision and resourcefulness are what make can make a great film… not a slavishly formulaic length.

Those who create shorter film works don’t have to go the festival route (which is becoming terribly predictable in it’s own right). There is “self publishing” as their always was. You can “four-wall” your own screenings or put your films on the web.

Ray Bradbury and many others wrote novels AND short stories. Hell, he wrote poetry too. Akira Kurosawa made features AND short films. He also painted.

Maybe today’s filmmakers need to think broader. Their is a whole lot more to cinema than length or… even story. This is an art form that has been around for just over 100 years.

Lets see some soul and skip the formula, cliche and empty sentimentality that permeates so much of the feature and short works out there today.

I agree with greenSquid, good work is good work be it feature or short. I remember seeing “The Black Hole” short a while back and its a great example of a what a short should be, e.g short and clever.
Being that I’m just back from the Galway Film Festival, where I watched literally hours of shorts, I agree that just by getting a short into a festival may not ultimately further your “career”, but if your happy to accept it for what it is, e.g your short being shown on the big screen, then anything else that comes out of it is a bonus.
So features may be the new black but ask Fede Alvarez are shorts a waste of time.

Totally disagree… especially if you want to have a career as a director. Film festivals have basically marginalized themselves with poor selections so the distribution and an audience outside of other filmmakers has dried up. Seriously, the last film that most normal people have heard of that came out of Sundance was Brick… five years ago. Paranormal Activity was rejected and only played Slamdance after a few agents from CAA got behind it. Meanwhile, when you look at short films over the past year alone you have ‘The Raven’, ‘Panic Attack’, ‘Mama’, ‘The Gift’, ‘Pixels’… not to mention the short film work of Neill Blomkamp which landed him District 9.

The guy who directed ‘The Raven’ made a feature film called Mancora that played the international section of Sundance… but it was the seven minute sci-fi short that got him all the attention and Mark Wahlberg stepping between Warner Brothers and Universal to secure the feature film rights. Not bad for a short film shot in two days.

All of these features being shot on HD are often more about the technology being used to shoot them (Red camera nerds, HDSLR nerds, etc.) than getting good performances and writing a great script. When you make a great short, you can put all your eggs into that basket and make sure that everything is top notch without spreading yourself too thin… and you have the added bonus of proving that you can actually entertain or move an audience. I seriously cannot believe the way that indie filmmakers have gone almost completely over to shooting HD dramatic films where the audience is FAR less forgiving of bad acting, pacing, and a boring story. I could agree with you if festivals were full of great independent features in the genres of comedy, horror, and sci-fi, but all of the best, most interesting work I’ve seen over the last few years have been short films. It’s indie FEATURES that are dead… festivals and the filmmakers themselves put the last nails in the coffin. Like a previous poster said, you shoot a short, you throw it online, and you sink or swim by how well told the story is, not by whether or not XYZ festival programmer or college student they’ve hired for $7 an hour to watch your DVD is having a bad day or only likes movies that feature some ridiculously ham-handed, pandering ‘social message’ that they misinterpret for intelligent filmmaking.

I posted HKrinkle’s list on my blog http://www.visualrebel.com/2010/07/21/short-films-are-dead-long-live-the-short/ Not trying to steal traffic, just saving people the bother of hunting them all down.

Hope thats ok Robin?

What a load of arrogant crap.

Wow, I can’t believe someone took something I said seriously… haha, I’m usually the person shunned out of these forums for questioning the indie status quo. Whooda thunk? I need to hang around this blog a lot more often…

I think that learning under tight circumstances is the way to go and these cameras really are a godsend… I mean, if you happen to make something groundbreaking (sometimes it happens by accident!), or that’s better than you imagined it would be or as great as you imagined it would be, you at least have these amazing images and nothing holding your film back. Imagine pouring your heart and soul into something and all you can afford is some crappy hi8 video camera! I think as the images get better, there’s less inertia to overcome if you have a good story and good acting. That’s nearly totally taken care of at this point… the average viewer loves the images out of these HDSLR and doesn’t question them, especially online. So now more than ever, you can concentrate on a great story.

Trust me, I know what you mean about your stuff always being held back or feeling that it was compromised. I felt that way up until now, and I’m kind of in the same boat, as I’m finally doing a decently budgeted $10k sci-fi short in the fall. However, I’m also happy that nothing really struck until now, as I can see how naive I was as a storyteller and director of actors. I wouldn’t have wanted to make it on my previous work, because I have a feeling I’d get there and not have a clue what to do… or fizzle out very quick. I’ve finally gotten to the point where I know where to bring out the tension in a scene, what parts of a story are the most interesting, etc. But still, I know I’ll always be learning… didn’t Kurosawa say that at age 80? ‘I’m still learning.’ As far as feeling you compromised a passion project with lack of a budget or whatever, I’ve also felt that way, but I also think there’s always another passion project on the horizon… if you think hard enough, there’s always another story to work up and get passionate about.

As far as whether or not to do drama, it depends on what your goal is, I think. For me, I’d only do a drama if I wanted to do the festival circuit, knew I had a great cast, and had enough money for a publicist to submit my film to the major fests. I think it still can be done, I just wouldn’t expect it to be too much of a stepping stone to a career unless it’s like… Raging Bull, Cuckoo’s Nest, Citizen Kane, Godfather good… cause I think that’s what it would take to penetrate the distribution system with an indie drama that has no name actors. And also, I have a sneaking suspicion that many of these festivals are run by people who only like stuff like ‘Tiny Furniture’. If you know anything about this movie, you know exactly what I’m talking about. No big deal, it has it’s place, it was beautifully shot, but not everyone wants to make movies like that… some people want to make bold statements or movies that boldly entertain, and I’m just afraid that a certain type of movie is the only thing we’ll ever see from festivals at this point.

Also – ditto on seeing nothing but bad indies, whether they be shorts or features… I’m also VERY tired of the travelogue type stuff we keep seeing on all the HDSLR, Red, and other camera sites. For God’s sake, don’t these guys ever get the urge to, ya know, tell a story? How about how every single camera test is a bunch of C Stands, some pretty young girl holding a chip chart, and a teddy bear hanging in front of a green screen. But I love ‘em cause of all the great info… just not useful when it comes to figuring out how these things hold up when you’re actually watching a compelling story.