Short subject
Encyclopedia
Feature film
In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
. No consensus exists as to where that boundary is drawn: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures...
defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all credits".
The increasingly rare term short subject means approximately the same thing. An industry term, it carries more of an assumption that the film is shown as part of a presentation along with a feature film. Short is an abbreviation for either term.
History
Longer films were rare before the 1920s, so length-based categories had little meaning. By the 20s, a ticket purchased a varied program including a feature and several supporting works from categories such as second feature, short comedy, 5-10 minute cartoon, and newsreel.Short comedies were especially popular, and typically came in a serial
Serial (film)
Serials, more specifically known as Movie serials, Film serials or Chapter plays, were short subjects originally shown in theaters in conjunction with a feature film. They were related to pulp magazine serialized fiction...
or series such as the Our Gang
Our Gang
Our Gang, also known as The Little Rascals or Hal Roach's Rascals, was a series of American comedy short films about a group of poor neighborhood children and the adventures they had together. Created by comedy producer Hal Roach, the series is noted for showing children behaving in a relatively...
films, or the many outings of Charlie Chaplin's
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
'Little Tramp' character. Although there was often no set release schedule, these series could be considered somewhat like a modern TV sitcom - lower in status than feature films but nevertheless very popular (comedians such as Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy were one of the most popular and critically acclaimed comedy double acts of the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema...
, Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
and Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton
Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...
all 'graduated' from shorts to features).
Animated cartoon
Animated cartoon
An animated cartoon is a short, hand-drawn film for the cinema, television or computer screen, featuring some kind of story or plot...
s came principally as short subjects, as did newsreel
Newsreel
A newsreel was a form of short documentary film prevalent in the first half of the 20th century, regularly released in a public presentation place and containing filmed news stories and items of topical interest. It was a source of news, current affairs and entertainment for millions of moviegoers...
s. Virtually all major film production companies had units assigned to develop and produce shorts, and many companies, especially in the silent
Silent Movie
Silent Movie is a 1976 satirical comedy film co-written, directed by, and starring Mel Brooks, and released by 20th Century Fox on June 17, 1976...
and very early sound era, produced mostly or only short subjects.
In the 1930s, the distribution system changed in many countries owing to the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
. Instead of the cinema owner assembling a program of their own choice, the studios sold a package centered on a main and supporting feature, a cartoon and little else. With the rise of the double feature
Double feature
The double feature, also known as a double bill, was a motion picture industry phenomenon in which theatre managers would exhibit two films for the price of one, supplanting an earlier format in which one feature film and various short subject reels would be shown.The double feature, also known as...
as a cinema programming format, two-reel shorts went into decline as a commercial category. Hal Roach
Hal Roach
Harold Eugene "Hal" Roach, Sr. was an American film and television producer and director, and from the 1910s to the 1990s.- Early life and career :Hal Roach was born in Elmira, New York...
, for example, moved Laurel and Hardy full-time into feature films after 1935, and halved his popular Our Gang
Our Gang
Our Gang, also known as The Little Rascals or Hal Roach's Rascals, was a series of American comedy short films about a group of poor neighborhood children and the adventures they had together. Created by comedy producer Hal Roach, the series is noted for showing children behaving in a relatively...
films to one reel. By the 1940s he had moved out of short films altogether (though MGM continued the Our Gang shorts until 1944).
Later shorts include George O'Hanlon
George O'Hanlon
George O'Hanlon was an American screen actor, comedian, and voice actor.-Early life and career:George O'Hanlon was born in Brooklyn, New York City on November 23, 1912....
's Joe McDoakes
Joe McDoakes
Joe McDoakes is the protagonist of a series of 63 black and white live action comedy one reel short subjects released between 1942 and 1956. The Joe McDoakes shorts are also known as the Behind the Eight Ball series or the So You Want... series...
films, and the animated work of studios such as Walt Disney Productions, Leon Schlesinger Productions/Warner Bros. Cartoons
Warner Bros. Cartoons
Warner Bros. Cartoons, Inc. was the in-house division of Warner Bros. Pictures during the Golden Age of American animation. One of the most successful animation studios in American media history, Warner Bros. Cartoons was primarily responsible for the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies theatrical...
, Walter Lantz
Walter Lantz
Walter Benjamin Lantz was an American cartoonist, animator, film producer, and director, best known for founding Walter Lantz Productions and creating Woody Woodpecker.-Early years and start in animation:...
and Fleischer/Famous Studios
Famous Studios
Famous Studios was the animation division of the film studio Paramount Pictures from 1942 to 1967. Famous was founded as a successor company to Fleischer Studios, after Paramount acquired the aforementioned studio and ousted its founders, Max and Dave Fleischer, in 1941...
. By the mid 1950s, with the rise of television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
, the commercial live-action short was virtually dead, The Three Stooges being the last major series of two-reelers, ending in 1959, and the cartoon short began to fade beginning in the early 70s due to rising inflation, with The Pink Panther
The Pink Panther (character)
The Pink Panther is the main and title character in the opening and closing credit sequences of every film in The Pink Panther series except for A Shot in the Dark and Inspector Clouseau. His popularity spawned a series of theatrical shorts, merchandise, a comic book, and television cartoons...
being the last regular theatrical cartoon short series, ending in 1980, despite the fact it began in 1964, when most cartoon studios were closing down or turning to television. Short film had become a medium for student, independent and specialty work.
Modern Era
A few animated shorts continue within mainstream commercial distribution. For instance, PixarPixar
Pixar Animation Studios, pronounced , is an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California. The studio has earned 26 Academy Awards, seven Golden Globes, and three Grammy Awards, among many other awards and acknowledgments. Its films have made over $6.3 billion worldwide...
has screened a short along each of its feature films during its initial theatrical run since 1995 (producing shorts permanently since 2001). Since Disney acquired Pixar in 2005, Disney has also produced animated shorts since 2007 with the Goofy
Goofy
Goofy is a cartoon character created in 1932 at Walt Disney Productions. Goofy is a tall, anthropomorphic dog, and typically wears a turtle neck and vest, with pants, shoes, white gloves, and a tall hat originally designed as a rumpled fedora. Goofy is a close friend of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck...
short How to Hook Up Your Home Theater
How to Hook Up Your Home Theater
How to Hook Up Your Home Theater is a 2007 theatrical cartoon from Walt Disney Animation Studios, directed by Kevin Deters and co-directed by Stevie Wermers-Skelton. This is the first theatrical Goofy solo cartoon short made in 46 years, since Aquamania...
.
Dreamworks Animation
DreamWorks Animation
DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc. is an American animation studio based in Glendale, California that creates animated feature films, television program and online virtual worlds...
often produces a short sequel to include in the special edition video releases of major features, and are typically of a sufficient length to be broadcast as a television special
Television special
A television special is a television program which interrupts or temporarily replaces programming normally scheduled for a given time slot. Sometimes, however, the term is given to a telecast of a theatrical film, such as The Wizard of Oz or The Ten Commandments, which is not part of a regular...
. Warner Brothers often includes old animated shorts from its considerable library, connected only thematically, on the DVD releases of classic WB films such as The Adventures of Robin Hood
The Adventures of Robin Hood (film)
The Adventures of Robin Hood is a 1938 American swashbuckler film directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley. Filmed in Technicolor, the picture stars Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, and Claude Rains.-Plot:...
.
Shorts International and Magnolia Pictures
Magnolia Pictures
Magnolia Pictures is an American film distributor, and is a holding of 2929 Entertainment, owned by Todd Wagner and Mark Cuban. Magnolia was formed in 2001 by Bill Banowsky and Eamonn Bowles, and specializes in both foreign and independent films....
organize an annual release of Academy Award nominated short films in theatres across the US, UK, Canada and Mexico throughout February/March.
Shorts are occasionally broadcast as filler
Filler (media)
In media, filler is material that is combined with material of greater relevance or quality to "fill out" a certain volume.-Early television:...
when a feature film or other work doesn't fit the standard broadcast schedule. ShortsTV was the first television channel dedicated to short films.
However, short films generally rely on festival
Film festival
A film festival is an organised, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theaters or screening venues, usually in a single locality. More and more often film festivals show part of their films to the public by adding outdoor movie screenings...
exhibition to reach an audience. Such films can also be distributed via the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
. Certain websites which encourage the submission of user-created short films, such as YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
and Vimeo
Vimeo
Vimeo is a video-sharing website on which users can upload, share, and view videos. It was founded by Zach Klein and Jake Lodwick in November 2004...
have attracted large communities of artists and viewers. Sites like FILMSshort and the BBC Film Network focus on showcasing curated shorts.
Short films are a typical first stage for new filmmakers. However, professional actors and crews still choose to create short films as alternative form of expression. Short film making is growing in popularity as equipment becomes cheaper and more amateurs are making films. "Prosumer
Prosumer
Prosumer is a portmanteau formed by contracting either the word professional or less often, producer with the word consumer. For example, a prosumer grade digital camera is a "cross" between consumer grade and professional grade...
" or semi-professional cameras now cost under USD$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
3,000, and free or low-cost software is widely available that is capable of video editing
Non-linear editing system
In video, a non-linear editing system is a video editing or audio editing digital audio workstation system which can perform random access non-destructive editing on the source material...
, post-production
Post-production
Post-production is part of filmmaking and the video production process. It occurs in the making of motion pictures, television programs, radio programs, advertising, audio recordings, photography, and digital art...
work and DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
authoring.
Tropfest is the world's largest short film festival and is generally regarded as one of the most prestigious. Tropfests now take place in Australia (it's birthplace), Arabia, the US and elsewhere. Originating in 1993, Tropfest is often credited as being at least partially responsible for the recent popularity of short films internationally.
Short Shorts
Short short films are sometimes considered as a category of their own. The International Festival of Very ShortsThe International Festival of Very Shorts
The Festival International des Très Courts is an international film festival of Shorts created in 1999 and held each year in dozens of cities simultaneously....
is a festival based in Paris which shows only films less than three minutes long. Filminute
Filminute
Filminute is the international one-minute film festival dedicated to presenting, promoting and awarding the world's best one-minute films. Filminute was founded in 2005 and the inaugural festival ran in September 2006...
, the international one-minute film festival, has presented and promoted a collection of one-minute films across multiple media since September 2006.
See also
- List of short film festivals
- List of animated short series
- List of independent short films
- List of short live-action films
- List of short subjects by Hollywood studio
- Movieola: The Short Film ChannelMovieolaMovieola is a Canadian English language Category B specialty channel owned by Channel Zero Inc....
- The Journal of Short FilmThe Journal of Short FilmThe Journal of Short Film is a quarterly DVD publication of peer-reviewed short films of all genres. It is published by The Ohio State University Film Studies Program...
- TropfestTropfestTropfest is the world's largest short film festival.Tropfest began in 1993 as a screening for 200 people in a cafe in Sydney but has since become the largest platform for short films in the world. Tropfest Australia takes place in February each year in front of a live audience of approximately...
External links
- | Platform for media students to produce their own short-films, documentaries
- ShortFilms.com | Short Films Social Networking Site
- FILMSshort.com | The Greatest Short Films
- British Film Institute: "Writing Short Films" by Phil Parker screenonlineScreenonlineScreenonline is a Web site devoted to the history of British film and television, and to social history as revealed by film and television. The project has been developed by the British Film Institute and funded by a £1.2 million grant from the National Lottery New Opportunities Fund.Reviews...
, website of the British Film InstituteBritish Film InstituteThe British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...