A good (and very inspirational book) that I just bought yesterday that touches on this, albeit biased toward shorts is...
"The Ultimate Filmmaker's Guide To Short Films: Making it Big in Shorts" - Kim Adelman
I was going to put a few quotes from it here, but can't find the exact ones I'm looking for.. basically it says to make the movie you want to, can, and should make. Be it a short, or a feature. Also note that with shorts the SHORTER it is, the easier it is to get accepted at a fest. "If you make a one minute short, and it's good. Chances are it will play everywhere, because festival producers always have an extra minute."
Along with this it is interesting to note that the format you deliver the short to the festival in can play a big role with what it may/will do for you. If it's in 35mm it very well could play before/between the longer features. A good example is Mark Osborne, who shot a short animated film (
"More") on 70MM Giant Screen/IMAX stock. Obviously it can't be submitted to festivals in this format, as none could play it.. However he did end up having it run for six months with the IMAX film
"Everest" in New York and London. Obviously that is an extremely expensive format, but it does have its benefits:
- Strong marketing & exhibition hook. (You're in your own class when you have an IMAX short)
- Extended theatrical exhibition if you can hook up with the IMAX people.
- Possible Oscar nomination. The Academy acknowledges IMAX films as legitimately commercially exhibited films.
More was nominated.
Keep in mind, that though things have slowly looked up a bit for shorts, when refering to the Academy, in recent years... The Academy loves long films, so if you're after an oscar, features are the way to go.
The bottom line is this, if you make a very high quality short with a good story (preferably of the type you'd like to persue later in your carreer, because if it's good people may/will offer you feature projects of the same genre) in a highly available festival format (35mm, and more increasingly DV) people will see it, and it will get you recognition, and it most likely will help your filmmaking future.
Shorts are a good way to practice and hone filmmaking skills. Shorts in many ways take more effort/work/skill than a feature because you have a limited amount of screen time in which to get the whole story out. That means you have to get to the point, and make an impression.
Shorts are also very memorable, why? Because they're SHORT! How many people haven't seen
405? (it's on ifilm.com) They made that little beauty in 3 and a half months.. with a single CCD DV camera (Canon Optura) It's gotten them a ton of notice.. Heck it's one of the most watched shorts on the net! It's also gotten them a lot of work, and in turn made them mucho deniro!
Also of note would be
The Spirit of Christmas and
Frog Baseball. These both have a couple things in common. First, they're both animated shorts. Second, they were created for network TV (Cable, but hey, who's counting), and Third, they launched a few fairly huge careers. Matt Stone & Trey Parker have made insane amounts of money off their South Park creation originally (unintentionally) developed in
The Spirit of Christmas. Mike Judge has also have a fairly successful career due to his successful, and again unitentional creation of Beavis & Butthead in the
Frog Baseball short. He's got a pretty good following for
King of the Hill on FOX now too. And both have since made fairly successful feature length films.
So The short answer is, yes, a short can have a positive impact on your filmmaking future. Incidentally, I was a strong supporter of the 'jump in head first and make a feature right away' mentality before I began reading this book. I have decided to concentrate on shorts for a year or two first to develop and hone my craft, so when I do make a feature it (hopefully) will not look as ameteur a production.
Cheers!
(Damn that got long)