History of Short Films

A short film is similar to any other film in relation to chronology (beginning, middle and end) however, the only variation being that the duration is significantly longer, usually under 40 minutes.
Short films are also often low budget, and are produced by independent directors. Like many other films, short films can occasionally intend to get a message across seriously, and can just be made stemming from a light hearted approach with aims to simply entertain.
Unlike feature length films, short films are usually shown in film festivals and through video streaming websites, and unfortunately over the recent years short films have decreased in popularity.
Having said this, short films frequently receive awards at festivals such as 'Sundance Festival'.
In the beginning all films were short. The earliest cinema audiences were highly satisfied with witnessing man's latest technological outburst, even if it was just small snippets of daily activities transformed into comedic scenes.. However  as the start of the twentieth century began to prevail, films started to increase in duration.
 The very earliest films were presented to public audiences in the year 1894 via Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope, a very immediate viewing designed for individual viewing exclusively. These short and sharp scenes often consisted of points of interest conveying celebrities, royal processions and current affaires of everyday life.

One of the best known films from this era is arguably the 'Lumiere brothers' Arrival of a train at Ls Cioatat in the year 1895. This would have been a significant viewing as from an audience perspective, all that would have been visible was a huge train coming directly toward the individual viewing the film. The short duration of these one-shot films were very appropriate for the Victorian modes of representation at the time. It is argued that 'short films were the norm' because the content of many short films was based on already existing entertainment media such as variety acts and lantern shows.

Short films began in the 1910's, in the United States of  America. The films at the start were either animated or live action and were maid purely to make people laugh and were therefore intensely comical. Although the popularity of these films fell dramatically after 20 years, they started to regain fame in the year 1955.
Many argue that this return in vogue was because of Charlie Chaplin who started making short films, however since this year short films have not been so popular.
Here is Charlie  Chaplin's first ever short film. Charlie himself disliked the film, whereas critics love it.

http://youtu.be/b9o-GIG4RIc


Raindance film festival is an indpendent film festival and film school that operates in major cities across the globe, particualrly in the United Kingdom and the United States of America. The highly accredited organisation made a list of seven rules for writing short films:

1.) The shorter the better
2.) Make it visual
3.) Find single moments
4.) Tell a story
5.) Engage the reader
6.) Beware of the cliches
7.) Rules of writing still need to be considere