Short Film Festivals & Channels

Looking at distribution and exhibition

Short films often draw a very specific and niche audience – distribution usually intends to make the product aware to those who would usually seek them out as opposed to attempting to reach the mainstream.

This has lead to many short films finding their homes on websites, such as YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion as well as websites embedding carefully selected short films, such as short of the week.

Digital distribution has been favoured by some filmmakers due to the control and wide reach of audience they are given, as opposed to a more niche response if shown at festivals.

With the focus for exhibiting films on channels moving to websites, specialist websites exist in order to point fans of certain genres towards shorts they might enjoy.

The website io9, which features articles on science fiction and fantasy products as well as the culture that surrounds them. Weekly they post short films that would appeal to their target audience and as this website has a large following, this gives the short films they post more of an audience.

Other sites exist for different genres too, and websites often source lists of themed shorts for specific events (festive for Christmas, horror for Halloween).

What this highlights is the benefit of establishing an obvious genre for your short film. As genres bring in specific audiences, choosing a genre can help you reach your audience online and as well as making it easier for other people to classify and recommend it. If you make a fantasy/sci-fi film, it would be easy to recommend it to Star Wars/Doctor Who fans.

Competitions also are very beneficial for films to reach their audiences as well as for directors to go on to (longer) features.

A well known example is the director Gareth Edwards going on to direct his first feature Monsters (leading into the high budget Godzilla) after winning a competition involving producing a short film in 48 hours.

Winners of competitions are guaranteed some kind of audience – the judges and other competitors who want to find out what film beat theirs!

Winning competitions can often earn directors and film makers credibility in the industry, especially if the competition is well acclaimed.