BSA706 update

Today we are looking at Short Films

Brief History

In the beginning, all films were short and usually weren't any longer than 20 minutes. They fit in well with the contemporary amusements such as magic shows, carnivals, and variety acts. Notable shorts of this period are A Trip to the Moon (1902) George Melies and The Great Train Robbery (1903) by Edwin S. Porter. Improvements in recording and editing techniques led to longer films. Longer films were considered more respectable as their length and narrative complexity compared more favorably with high culture such as theatre and opera

Short films still retained popularity and were shown alongside news reels and took on the additional role of government propaganda in the lead up to WWII. For this reason, short films started to seem educational and sanctimonious as opposed to the escapist like what Hollywood was offering. By the 1960s, shorts were out in favour of increasing the number of screenings per day and using trailers and adverts to boost theatre revenue. Short cartoons continued to be shown at the start of children's films until the late 1980s

The Surrealists embraced short form filmmaking. Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali's eye-slicing Un Chien Andalou (1929). Sixties avant-gardists such as Agnes Varda and Chris Marker (France), Andy Warhol (USA). Resent video artist include Bruce Nauman, Nathan Mellors, and Steve McQueen. MTV was launched in the US in 1981 and served as an outlet for short film-makers. The quick editing and preeminance of the song over story have influenced the look and language of film-making in general. The arrival of affordable and digital recording equipment in the 90s and beyond led to an upsurge of independent film-making, particularly of shorts, which are generally cheaper and less demanding to make than featured

The ability to screen films easily and cheaply has spawned hundreds of dedicated short film festivals around the world. The biggest demand for short films is from the internet where bite-sized information is preferred over long form films. YouTube was founded in 2005 by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, employees of PayPal. The first video 'Me at the Zoo' has had over 84,800,873 views since being uploaded on 23rd of April, 2005. Releasing videos on the internet is a free way of releasing a film and generating views in a short period of time

Here are some films we are watching today

La Jetee (1962)

Made by Chris Marker. This was later remade into a feature films called Twelve Monkeys (1995) by Terry Gillian. The full film size of La Jetee is 26 minutes long

Vincent (1982)

Created by Tim Burton, Vincent is a Stop-motion film narrated by Tim's childhood hero Vincent Price. The themes, style, and Vincent Price show up in Tim Burton's film called Edward Scissorhands (1990)

Sky Captain (1998-2002)

Kerry and Kevin Conran decided to make the sets for a movie on their home apple computer and drop the actors in later. This was a revolutionary idea for the time. Now this practice is used for every film. Both men created Made into Sky Captain and World of Tomorrow in 2004. The full film is 6 minutes

Alive in Joburg (2005)

Created by Neill Blomkamp, this is the sci-fi short film that led to the feature film District 9. The full film is 6 minutes

Mama (2008)

Created by Andres Mushietti. This short film was remade in 2013 and produced by Guillermo Del Toro. It is regarded as the best short film movie by many classmates of mine as it had the best suspense ever.

9 - Student Film

Shane Acker wrote, directed, and animated the 11 minute short film which premiered at Sundance in 2005 and garnered numerous awards. It was created as a student project while he was at UCLA Animation Workshop. It took 4.5 years to make. It used Maya 1.5-5.5 for 3D mdeling, Photoshop for textures, After Effects for Compositing, and Premiere Pro for editing. Besides Acker, 5 other animators and 3 other lighters worked on the film. 9 was his directorial debut (2009) was based on his Oscar-nominated short. It was produced by Tim Burton and Timor Bekmambetov and was released by Focus Features in 2009. It made $48.4 million on a $30 million budget

KungFury (2015)

Made by David Sandberg in 1985, KungFury is the toughest martial artist cop in Miami, goes after the greatest criminal of all time - KungFutrer, a.k.a.Adolf Hitler. A sequel went into development in 2018. The full movie is 31 minutes

New Zealand Short Films make for the 48 Hour Film Festival

Peptok by Chillybox (2018)

Utka by Poutine Wolf (2018)

Under the Bridge by Cool Story Bro Film (2017)

Time Travel Center by Chillybox (2016)

Love.EXE by Bork! (2016)

Bread Winner by Chess Clib (2015)

Rants on Fire by Lense Flare (2014)

Dead End Job by Mukpuddy (2014)

Travel with Time Pieces by The Tanked Engines (2014)

The Sleeping Plot by Traces of Nut (2013)

Brains? By Noice and Pictures (2012)

The Child Jumper by Grand Cheval (2011)

For the short films I have seen, they seem very much adult themed. I think I prefer different themes, with no strong language, and maybe show more of a message for the viewer to learn from and enjoy

I do like KungFury

It is so random and funny. Really cool effects and shots. We can see that it is very much edited and not real. In fact, it seems that it is made as a joke. So amazing! Like, so epic and unreal. It's just funny. And random, and lots of blood and action filled, just random and predictable ha ha ha

But that is because it is just funny. I would not make it a full length film. I do prefer a film with meaning and a message for others to learn from