Codes and conventions of a short film.

By James C. Bruce

A good media product is often defined as a product that adheres to the accepted modern conventions i.e. Competent cinematography & audio, obeying the rule of thirds, making good use of lighting especially when working within a genre such as Noir, motifs and Tropes.

Now when referring to short films there are certain conventions that are more specific than others. For example:

What makes a Good Product?

As many feature films are in the one and a half to three hour long category the specific time constraint of a short film is at max 40 minutes but is ideally around the 10 minute mark. This allows the director to get across an idea or narrative without the audience becoming bogged down in specifics. It also means it can be done reasonably cheaply.

Length

Although all films have a budget that they have to stick to short films are the only form of cinema that has such a small budget affectionately called "the Hobo budget". Its because of this that many short film makers are multi-talented often producing their own props and sets, making creative use out of what they have lying around. This often leads to the use of small numbers or actors/extras as an indie film maker doesn't have an administration team to organize or pay for more than a handful of actors. Side note, this often leads to young directors going into larger productions and taking these skills with them. During the production of the web series Video Game High School the director Freddie Wong used cardboard legs stuck onto broom handles to look like shadows passing by a high up window in a basement.

Budget

Character is short films may be few in number but they lack none of the complexity found in feature films, in fact due to the time constraint they are often more so. More often than not this is because directors cannot afford to employ more actors so strive to get as much out of as few a number of actors as possible. This may not be a convention strictly aimed at short films but t is one that is rather dominant.

Character

Twisting realityBecause short films are so constrained by time and budget a trick the directors often employ is to take an everyday and play around with it. For example the walk to college in the morning is something that we all understand but add a child on a hover board and an alien pushing a pram and you have something that the audience can relate to but is interesting and grabs their attention. This does not however mean that every short film director should go all M. Night Shymalan on their projects just add something either quirky or different to your product to make it stand out.