Studying Short Films

Today we have learnt that will will be studying a variety of short films throughout the next couple of weeks. in today's lesson we were asked to look at different types of short films using the links that the teacher had given to us. We were asked to go onto Virgin shorts and BBC shorts websites and look at different films in our chosen genre. However, as Me and Connor hadn't chosen our genre yet, we used this time to look at different films and pick our genre via them. Below are print screens of the two websites that we used with their links underneath them.

There are many different reasons why people would make short films. The first of these reasons could be for advertising or promoting a particular product. Short films could also be produced for showcasing a certain directors abilities and skills as well as giving out a message to its viewers. One final reason why people make short films is just for fun. some people may just simply enjoy making films and putting them together. However, these films must be funded in some way. Some short films are directed via local councils or police services if they are promoting a message, whereas They could also be funded by organisations that want a product to be advertised during the film. Another way of funding the short films, is self funding. This is particularly frequent when a director is working towards making a film for fun or to showcase his/her own talents as a director.

For these films to be successful, they must be distributed throughout the film industry in some way. The first way that it is distributed is via social networking sites. The films could be posted on 'Facebook' or 'Twitter' to help be shared to a wider community. They could also be given to a film festival or certain companies that promote short films. One final way that short films could be distributed is by the director entering the film into a film competition. It will then be seen by many other people and distributed in that way.

One example of the way films are produced is 'Smashed'. Smashed is a film that I am going to study, so i have researched the short in order to gain information on it. Smashed was produced and funded by both the local council and the somerset police service. It was then distributed by the director entering the film in the BBC film network competition. Lastly the film was also produced to promote a message. The message was about alcohol and the consequences of excessive alcohol us in all types and classes of people.

www.BBC.co.uk/filmnetwork/

www.virginmediashorts.com/