Short film research (BBC)

Background, History and Short films today.
A short film is simply defined by being too short to be classified as a feature film and they can either be amateur or professional. Short films are usually made from no budget or low budgets and have the potential to be showcased at film festivals worldwide.
      In the early days of film making, long and short films were both as popular as each other. However, back then comedy shorts were the especially popular ones. Furthermore, all the major film production companies were assgined to produce some short films but for some of them, that is all they produced. Cartoon shorts were then introduced but shifted to television because that is the bigger market for them at the time and even the still existing theatrical shorts did too by the 1960's.
      Today, few short films are mainstream distributed, examples of some are the ones produced by pixar/Disney. Most short films rely heavily still on being distributed by film festivals or via the internet on websites such as Youtube and the BBC. Furthermore, more amateurs are creating short films due to technology being of low cost therefore is cheaper to make and edit.

When researching for short films I discovered that the BBC had it's own section dedicated to showcasing short films. The direct link to this is, http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/films/

Background of the website

The website is good because it gives you a wide variety of short films that you can watch. The print screen images show this because you can navigate  your way around the various categories with the links. This makes it easier to find the short films you want to watch for example if you want a specific genre or by what other people have rated the films.

In addition on the website, there is a guide to film making where the audience can learn the various aspects and not just particularly filmaking for example, marketing and distribution. Furthermore, there is different videos and posts including case studies and How to guides.

The image on the left shows an example of a case study on the website. It explains all about a director, his first interest in filmaking and his journey of making short films which may inspire others when they visit the website.


Examples

These are some examples of short films i found whilst doing research on the website.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/films/p00pdf9j
Paper Hearts by Rob Brown.

I found this film in the drama category on the website. I watched films from this category
specifically because I believe it would be a good genre to do for our own short film therefore would be more beneficial to us. In this film, 'A dysfunctional father and son make a surprising discovery about each other' therefore is focusing mainly on a relationship between two people. In our short film an idea is to center it around a relationship however not specifically a father/son one like in this.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/films/p00pf28k
The Last Man On Earth by Carlo Ortu.


I decided to watch films in the different categories on the website to give me more varied research therefore, can gain different ideas for our own ideas. This particular video is from the comedy section. Even though this isn't a genre we would probably consider I found the video good for the narrative because at then very ending there is a plot twist. He tries to commit suicide because he believes he is the last person on Earth however, then his phone rings after he's drank deadly solution. In our short film, it would good to incorporate a plot twist at then end because it adds suspense or leaves the audience in shock and ties the whole short film together.