Codes and Conventions ofShort Films

By Aneisha Vincitore

CharactersCharacters are an obvious convention in short films, as they tend to have a maximum of 2-3 central characters. A ‘short film’ means that the audience don’t have the time to find out lots of details about the character, for example the history or background of the character. Therefore for that reason having minimal characters, allow the audience to relate to a particular character in a quick amount of time. For example; Hard Candy is a 6 minute short film with only two characters appearing within it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXS_Q2Ga7PM

BudgetIt is typical for all short films to have a low budget compared to other long featured films. This idea is based on that fact that most short film directors are independent and they work with a low budget. They manage to keep their costs down by sticking to only a couple of actors and sticking to one location for the duration of the film. Some actors also may work for free if they really like the story line.

Example- The Black Hole, one location an one actor throughout the film.

Twist

Short films normally contain a twist. The reason for the twist is to make the short film interesting because if there was nothing happening throughout the film, it might make it boring for people to watch, so therefore it provides excitement for the audience. The Black Hole is a brilliant example of this, the link is below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5_Msrdg3Hk

Length

Short films are normally ‘short’ and therefore they are usually a max length of 40 minutes. However typically they are 5-10 minutes long. If they was any longer than that, then they wouldn’t be labelled as ‘short’ and would be classed as ‘featured long’.