Exhibition of short films

Sundance:
this is the largest independent film festival in the USA, its held from the 21st-31st of january each year in Park City Utah, Sundance started in 1978,
The festival specialises in both feature and short films in particular Dramatic and Documentary films
Awards Include:
Us Dramatic Competition
Us Documentary competition
World Cinema Dramatic competition
World Cinema Documentary Competition

to actually get your work nominated to take part in sundance your work has to be incredibly well known and you have to at least be a well known director in some way to have the recognition and marketing ability too have your work noticed.

http://festival.sundance.org/2010/

Encounters:

Encounters film festival formally known as Brief Encounters is a film festival that was introduced in 1995 to celebrate the 100 years of film, it was supposed to be a one off event but due to its success its become one of the biggest festivals devoted to short film it happen every november form the 17th to the 21st.
you apply online on the 1st of august until the actual festival itself.

http://www.encounters-festival.org.uk/

Tropfest:

Founded by award-winning actor/ director John Polson, Tropfest began as a short film festival in Sydney, Australia in 1993.
Tropfest is known as the largest short film festival in the world It renowned for its support of new film making talent.
Tropfest offers filmmakers a world-class platform for launching their careers through its reach, prizes to help contestants and winners connections within the industry. Celebrity supporters of tropfest include Russell Crowe, Nicole Kidman, Ewan McGregor, Will Smith and many others to help endorse the festival and endorse short film as a whole.

http://www.tropfest.com/

Short film festivals not only promote work but they are a form of exhibition for it, they draw in crowds of hundreds upon thousands of people to watch work created by people world wide to receive some-kind of recognition in the industry, the exhibition is also seen through releases on the internet i.e

www.youtube.com for the more film orientated pieces of work

www.newgrounds.com for the more flash animation orient work

these are far from the only websites, there are hundreds of them out there to publicly exibit work worldwide.

The Big Shave

The big shave is one of my favourite pieces of short film, its directed by Scorsese, this is a simple but incredible short film which shows Scorseses personal style of being brutal and violent.
the big shave is a story about a man simply having a shave in the bathroom in a very clinical environment; but taking the shaving too far, to the point that hes cutting his flesh and bleeding everywhere.

this is an underline hint at vietnam, at the pointless-ness and stupidity of the war and the ridiculous massacres they have inflicted on countless people in vietnam.

the shots are as clinical as the environment and show how precise the man knew he was shaving, precisely wanting to bleed and inflict pain on himself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83i8G6o0quc

the sucess of this short film is world renowned as many ameture film makers have found themselves imitating the big shave and posting their different renditions of it on youtube for world wide exibit.

Avant Gard/Experimental/Arthouse Cinema

Short film could in no way compete with holly wood or the mainstream, so it found its clear home within art.
Both Avant Gard and experimental Art take a strong interest in short films, this is because they can change all of the dynamics that an normal film would have and take it to an artistic level.

Maya Denens " meshes of the afternoon" not only set the tone for Avant Gard but also added expressionism into the equation; the expresionist movements are filmed clinically and precisely to look void of reality as if the surreal nature of things happening are something of a dream, Maya uses no sound during the film and has the actress move flowingly almost like a dance. the music on meshes of the afternoon ins incredibly significant as it shows that the music can change the entire piece, the dance doesn't flow with the music, therefore i see this being more like an obscure movement to some awkwardly placed music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPi9i3gfSAM



Maya stands up as an anti-mainstream director and this is show in her artistic license in and creativity through her work, opposing normal codes and conventions and making her work look more like a moving painting rather than making a high budget film.

Mayas work differs from anything i've ever seen before as each shot looks like an individual painting especially at 2:30 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9Gve37nWBo) in part 1 of "at land" there is a bunch of men sitting smoking at a large table; this one frame has artistic significance just showing the high class doing what they do- like doccumenting what happens from the artistic point of view



The Berlin Horse 1970-
Directed by:Malcolm Le Grice
Sound by: Brian Eno
The berlin horse is basically just a horse walking around, then reversed with colours flashing with a very irritating piano piece being played in the background; this is seen as art. this piece for me shows that the experiments that artists took perhaps seem to be completely insignificant to some people; but have underlined meanings, Berlin horse was supposed to be an experiment of how peoples eyes react to colour and the sense of rhythm they build from the soundtrack.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDj8Tc6259o&feature=related

The History of Short Film

1895- Sortie De'lusine; the first films were short due to technology restrictions.

Short Film and Hollywood:
Short film was completely over shadowed by the high production of Hollywood; the dominant mode of film production 'the classic narrative' and feature length 90 Min's.
The Hollywood studio system required films to be no longer than 100 Min's so the cinemas were able to have 2 hour blocks in which the trailers and viewers were able to get food.

1930s onwards short film was a marginal activity; it would only be created to break codes and conventions of high budget blockbuster films and allow directors the leisure of experimenting without a huge financial loss.



Short Film and Tv:

1960-1970S TV provided some insers where people could watch short films, these were either 'Fillers' between programs or at late night slots.
1990s BBC2 launched series 10 X 10 which was in association with the BFI to showcase some short films.
1993: bbc launched 'video nation' to populate mass vieweing of short films, and now the internet.

- video cameras became cheeper and smaller and the video diary started to grow in number, this was set to influence the generation of reality tv such as big brother and reality tv online in 2001.
www.bbc.co.uk/videonation

currently:

Hollywood doesn't follow the studio system and sees short film as room for experiments and innovation, short film as previously stated allows the director to be able to take risks without huge financial loss over their heads. Studios also now scout talent at short film festivals for young aspiring directors. George Lucas, and Stephen Spielberg were both found at film festivals and they've gotten where they are now due to it.

Rubber Johnny- Chris Cunningham

Rubber Johnny- first opinion on this; something relavant towards condom use and sexual activity.

Rubber Johnny scared me to be honest, this short was supposed to be an advert to showcase the trippy drum and bass music of aphex twin; but the director saw potential and continued working with rubber johnny;

the story is that of a disfigured child locked in a basement with his pet dog; Johnny is questioned by psychiatrists; and is seemingly calling for his mother at one point; then left alone in darkeness with just the dog, the music then kicks in and the short film then turns into a music video; fast paced shots cutting every second, blurs, sped shots to the point of distortion; this is fuel for the music to emphasise the power of the rubber-like movements of johnny and his dancing.

My initial message ideas for this were:

Johnny remains motionless throughout the entire piece but is only dreaming the dancing scenario-longing- to be normal.

"Rubber Johnny" - should have worn a condom & not had johnny

Johnnys movements have some kind of rubbery feel to them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3far9oHZOsI

Spilt Water- Norio Tsuruta

Spilt water:

A story of a family trying to continue with normal life; a daughter and mother buy the deceased father a melon to put on his grave (it was his favourite fruit), this is shot closely making you feel like the third wheel of the family in retrospective you feel like you are following them; the melon is significant for this piece as the deceased fathers spirit walks past and says "mmm smells good"

from just watching this i thought about the melons significance of being able to bring the father back somewhat for a brief second and then kept thinking about the afterlife and how things connect;
so i personally think this piece is incredibly thought provocative and kept me on my toes.

the storyline also follows the mother being harsh to her child to begin with and then when the father appears, she apologises. this made me think of the message that: parents sometimes losing their way with there children and forgetting they have responsibillities to them but something major always happens then they realise the error of their ways and begin to spend more time with their kin.

another message i got from this was that of a question "perhaps the dead do watch over us?"

to say the least spilt water is a very captivating short.

The Difference Between Feature and Short

Feature Length:

100+ Mins
High Budget
Big Cast
Professional
Glossy
Long Production
Finished Ending
Mass Audience


Short Film:
0.30 seconds+ 15 minutes
Low Budget
Little Cast
Amateur
Grainy
Short Production
Unfinished ending
Niche Audience


Catherine De Forges
"Spare Economic narratives.. interesting storytelling well structured work which draws in the audience quickly"

Gareth Evans
"Short films are long films that finish earlier"
"A good idea sucessfully told, less is more"

Tales Of Terror (A collection of Japanese Horror Shorts)

All of the films in tales of terror take place in enclosed environments and contain very little speach;they engulfe the senses with awkward atmospheres created through the enclosed camera angles which make everything in the frame seem too personal for comfort as if you were next to the protagonists; in particular "the elevator" directed by Takashi Shimizu- the story of this is ludacrisly simple but stunning, from watching it once you learn next to nothing about the characters and notice nothing complex but from second watch you can figure out whats going on.

There are various wedding invitations which seem to upset the protgonist; you then see ghosts haunting an elevator; its difficult to explain but from watching it multiple times i've realised the significance of it all.
The boyfriends condesending attitude and the ghosts going down, and the protgonist going up in particular, the significance of this is:

The protagonist going up- signifys leaving sadness behind and going up ascending life; her sadness is the fact that everyone but her is getting married and her boyfriend shows no sign of proposing.

the ghosts going down- they are dead and theres nothing else they can do but go down and face their fate because they let their lives slip away and have lost happyness, so they stalk the happy.

i could be wrong but this is the interpretation i've gotten from it.

28 Weeks Later

the film 28 weeks later inspired short film directors to produce their own renditions of post apocalyptica situations.

77 days later is a rendition of 1 surviver on a roof and how he survived
and jealous rage is a man coming home to save his wife to find out shes having an affair.
these are exactly like the film; they are have the same darkness and malevolence to the mise-en-scene with the destroyed buildings trashed streets ragged clothes and destroyed homes.

from these short films you can see that they are directly derived from the film 28 weeks later; they all have the same codes and conventions of survival horror stories where the dead come to life, and they both exert the fear that the films do, these pieces are roughtly 6 minutes each.

77 days later:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUwR1EObahY

Jealous Rage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kVAzw8SDZc

Beyond Words by Armand De Saint-Salvy

This short film was showcased at Tropfest (the bigest short film festival) and was an australian finalist.
from watching this piece its also opened my eyes to the amount of freedom there is with subject matter and how its portrayed.
beyond words is literally beyond words, it came as such a shock to me that the man was Blind and the woman was deaf, i literally thought the piece was silent for a reason and that the little sound was only there to keep interest.

The cameras deffinately create a tense atmosphere along side the blank sounds. with the jittery camera shots and the blank screens with sound it creates questions in your head about how many people cope with disabillites such as those.

the story is simple, a Woman goes to a yoga class and a man in sunglasses appears to be staring at her throughout the session; the yoga session ends then you find out the man was blind and that changes the perspective the audience was initally given, from on edge because of a stalker to sympathetic due to the fact the man is blind.
the woman then procedes to leave class and goes to her car with the blind man shortly behind her, the screen then goes blank and you can hear the man saying "hello is anyone there hello"
then the camera jumps to the woman who is going to her car and another man grabs her from behind and is seen shouting but you cannot hear until she looks at him then the blind man comes up and the mugger runs away (most of this is incredibly hard to explain due to the nature of its filming) and the woman explains shes deaf and has to see his lips to understand him.

the shots throughout this short film are styalizes for 1 sense at a time, when the camera is persuing the woman the only sense you use is sight as there is no sound (as it would be for a deaf person) and when the camera follows the man, there is complete darkness and only sound so the audience focuses on hearing.
everything shot and heard is all personal, as you feel like you are a bystander watching what is happening to the two people.

to watch "Beyond Words" Click the link below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJlVNxBbrU8

Killing Time At Home by Neil Coslett

From watching this short film, i've realised that there is practically no restrictions atall for short films.
animation is used and no voices are used in this piece, the storyline is simple, it is that of iscolation and killing time, the only thing to do when you are alone is to kill time.
"killing time at home" lasts 3 minutes and portrays the very dark fact that friends are disposable, you make them and you break them, this is portrayed through the awkward looking animations and lugubrious colouring of everything;

from just watching the protagonist buy a friend it directly strikes the social dilema of friendships being disposable (disposablefriends.com), no matter what way you look at it, being simply able to buy and throw away people.

with there being no voice in the entire short film it shows that you needn't communicate with people to be their friend, and that they'll know that you are throwing them away even when you don't directly say it, you can have your fun then throw them away.

the piece is directed animated and written by neil coslett. it was created for blackwatch channel
4.

To watch "killing time at home" Click the link Below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RoV09H_Jsk

Bibliography

This is a Bibliography of every website i have visited to gain the information i've needed:


1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RoV09H_Jsk - killing Time at home
2)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJlVNxBbrU8-Beyond Words
3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUwR1EObahY-77 days later
4)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kVAzw8SDZc-Jealous Rage
5) Tales Of Terror Dvd- http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/images/B000F3AI8Q/sr=8-6/qid=1265383676/ref=dp_image_0?ie=UTF8&n=283926&s=dvd&qid=1265383676&sr=8-6
6)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3far9oHZOsI- Rubber Johnny
7)www.bbc.co.uk/videonation- Bbc Video Nation
8)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9Gve37nWBo -Maya Deren At land Part 1
9)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPi9i3gfSAM- Meshes Of the Afternoon (Maya Deren)
10) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDj8Tc6259o&feature=related - Malcolm Le Grice
11) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83i8G6o0quc- The Big Shave
12)http://www.encounters-festival.org.uk/ - Encounters
13)http://www.tropfest.com/- Tropfest
14)http://festival.sundance.org/2010/ - Sundance
15)http://www.atom.com/about/ - Atom
16) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJAeAQqCgvo- Fishing Hurts.
17) www.fishinghurts.com -Fishing hurts homebase
18) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPaxE9ouHpI- Kfc Cruelty