short films

Lecture 10 will explore a few more forms of filmmaking and editing many of you will encounter: Trailers & Short films. We will look at some examples in class and discuss some of the particular techniques that you can use to tackle these formats.

We will do an initial talk about Genre in preparation for the final assignment, and watch as segment of The Cutting Edge.

Short filmmaking is all about getting to the point and making everything count. Short films, like features, are also often most effective when the story is told visually — SHOW don’t TELL.

Often shorts are considered under 15 minutes (this is the cut off for festivals like Sundance, Cannes) but can be also considered under 50 minutes.

To get a handle on how to cut short films, its good to watch lots of them. Here are a few sites with more short films and a few very well executed shorts.

Paris, je t’aime, 2006, Coen Brothers (5 minutes)

ACT I – Opening setup
ACT II –The conflict that the main character will face (2 minutes)
ACT III – The resolution of the film

Broken Night, 2013, Guillermo Arriaga

Meshes of the Afternoon, Maya Deren, 1943 (13 min)

Wasp, Andrea Arnold (23 min)

Blood and Chips – Ryan Phillips – 2006

LIFT, Marc Isaacs, 2001 (20mon)

Walker, Tsai Ming-liang, 2012 (25 min)

Ryan, Chris Landreth, 2013 (14 min)

Bus 44 , Dayyan ENG, 2014

Amateur, Ryan Koo, 2013

Glory At Sea, Benh Zeitlin, 2008 (25 min)

“In 2012, Zeitlin’s debut feature Beasts of the Southern Wild swept the festival circuit, winning top prizes at both the Sundance and Cannes film festivals before ultimately picking up four Oscar nominations. Funding for the film wouldn’t have been possible, however, had Zeitlin not won an award at South by Southwest in 2008 with the premiere of his precursor short, Glory at Sea.” 16 Films that launched the careers of famous directors

Nan Lakou Kanaval, Kaveh Nabatian, 2015

The library has short film collections of Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry, both worth checking out. Also check out the whole collection Paris, Je t’aime.

Small Deaths, Lynne Ramsay, 1996 (11 min)

Bottle Rocket, Wes Anderson, 1994 (13 min)

Anderson’s original 1994 black and white version of Bottle Rocket has likely done more to launch its director’s career than any other short film ever.

Books on Short Filmmaking

Cowgill, Linda J. Writing Short Films: Structure and content for screenwriters. New York: Focal Press, 2006.
Irving, Davide K. and Peter W. Rea. Producing and Directing the Short film and video. New York: Focal Press, 2006.

Cutting Trailers

Mashups and Remixes

Mixing and re-mixing, referencing and re-making are fundamental to aspects of innovation in film-making. Video Mashups are one way to do this. Editing is a key tool for taking something old and transforming it into something new.

Check out this documentary RiP! A Remix Manifesto about what it’s all about:

SCM’s own IP Yuk-Yuk did this mashup in 2006: “PSYCHO(S) is a live remix of Alfred Hitchcock’s PSYCHO and Gus Van Sant’s remake in 1998. Running on custom software that edits the films in real-time, PSYCHO(S) juxtaposes and condenses the two films that were made almost 40 years apart into a hypnotic stream of mirror images. The images and sounds, drifting in and out of sync, create a perpetual state of cinematic déjà vu that haunts and confuses both the original and its double. PSYCHO(S) recycles the original narratives, forming new poetic associations in an endless cycle of parallel edits.”

Click on this link to see PSYCHO(S)

Try re-editing the famous shower scene in Psycho in Psycho Studio

Or check out this interesting YouTube remix by Eduardo Navas of 30 Radiohead Lotus Flower video samples.