What is a short film?

[Rooster]

I wrote a short film script that I'm now thinking is a bit action-heavy and may have too many scenes and sub-plots as well (though it's only about 11 minutes). I've been watching shorts to get a sense of what's appropriate, but most of them have only a few scenes and many seem just like snippets that could be plucked out from a longer feature film. To me, they feel incomplete and unresolved.

Is it wrong for me to try to pack too much into a short film? If I enter a film like that into a festival would it be frowned upon? I know too many scenes or locations can be hard on the budget, but that's a separate concern.

I haven't seen enough shorts to really know what the convention is or what will end up "not really working" so I'd appreciate advice from someone with more familiarity with shorts! I am mostly concerned with short shorts under 15 minutes. Also, recommendations of shorts to back up examples is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[CraigL]

I wrote a short film script that I'm now thinking is a bit action-heavy and may have too many scenes and sub-plots as well (though it's only about 11 minutes). I've been watching shorts to get a sense of what's appropriate, but most of them have only a few scenes and many seem just like snippets that could be plucked out from a longer feature film. To me, they feel incomplete and unresolved.

Is it wrong for me to try to pack too much into a short film? If I enter a film like that into a festival would it be frowned upon? I know too many scenes or locations can be hard on the budget, but that's a separate concern.

I haven't seen enough shorts to really know what the convention is or what will end up "not really working" so I'd appreciate advice from someone with more familiarity with shorts! I am mostly concerned with short shorts under 15 minutes. Also, recommendations of shorts to back up examples is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

What you're asking is very subjective; a short film is just that, a film, but shorter.

Some are definitely a whole little story, some are definitely little more than a sequence from a larger film. In fact, making a short from a sequence in a feature film to have as an example of what the feature might be is done fairly often. Or, perhaps they were making the short with an idea to making it into a series and just leaving an open ending to facilitate that.

It's very hard to cram a complete story (let alone sub-plots) into a short film, and perhaps many of the ones you feel were unresolved were just that, as they failed to build a complete conflict, or to resolve it properly.

There really is no "convention" per se. As far as what will end up "not really working", again, what doesn't work for some people, is what some other people love.

However, not having good sound, not having a good story, decent talent, camera shaking all over the place, no production value, badly lit, inconsistent editing, confusing plots... all those things will not work, just a quickly as the don't work in a feature.

CraigL