Dear Nenne

Well some good questions you've been raising. From what I know there are several "outlets" for short films. First of all there's the short film festivals (some of them even travel all across Europe) and from what I've seen I know some A-List festivals like the Berlinale got special programmes for this genre as well as they deliberately squeeze in at least one short before a bigger feature movie starts. I've seen some real talent there, making first moves on the film market at the Berlinale. It's always been a joy to watch them. I think most people in the film business see them more as leaving one's calling card rather than a "serious" thing. Which in my own opinion is nonsense, because I think a short film is a piece of art just as a written short story can be a piece of art in its own right regarding craft, number of people involved and message you're trying to get across. It's never EASY producing them.

Basically nowadays the short film genre is a sort of starting point for young film-makers who try to get a first "movie" made. For most it is a final masterpiece before they leave film school or whatever. Many of them put up their movies on youtube or other online-platforms after a short period of a number of festival screenings. Some are lucky enough to make it onto DVD compilations of "the best of the year" IF there's someone who cares enough to finance such editions. Or you get to see them, like Nenne said, somewhere in the late-programme of some good-hearted publicly funded TV station. Basically I'm meaning to say: they're often highly artistic / narrative stuff, made out of private funding with far to less commercial attention.

AS far as I know Greg Williams posted for his "Sergeant Slaughter": it's going to be on a short festival trip and that he's very likely going to upload it for the broader public to enjoy afterwards - which is probably the most reasonable way to handle a short film. If it is good enough it will win a price / accolades - like Nick Tomnay did years ago for "The Host" short which - as we all know quite well - has been made into a feature movie lately. There's even a short film category at the Oscars. I think it's always the film-makers decision to make their work available online or to hold it back IF they hold the copyright of their work and haven't sold it to some distribution company or TV station.

Surely, copyright questions do play a huge part in this, but what's it worth sitting on your own short film you've been financing from your own money if no-one buys it to sell it somewhere? Surely if you'd like to develop your idea further, you decide NOT to upload it somewhere. If you feel your idea is good enough to make a bigger thing out of it: you hold back and start looking for partners who will help you. Natural thing to do.

Just my 2 cents worth of thoughts. Needless to say that I do hope both of Nat's short film projects will win TONS of awards...

Cheers!

webmistress

butterfly wrote:

Dear all!

Anybody knows, what happened to a short film TELL ME, by Kate Lewis?

Greetings
xxx Jana

Awaiting its release or festival run I suppose. See my post above....

Cheers!

webmistress