Been watching the entries for this year's Stage 32 Short Film Contest... and so far, not ONE of them is under 15 minutes. Come on people... "brevity is the soul of wit". You want to use a film as a calling card? Execs aren't going to sit down for 15-25 minutes to watch a film. Easy to mistake to made as I've done it myself, but let's try to take the "short" in "short film" as a challenge, not as mere guidelines to follow.
Screenwriting : "Short" Film Contest by Erik Grossman
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Erik is right. get your short scripts under 15 pages or write a damn tv pilot.
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From Wikipedia: "A short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. Although no consensus exists as to where that boundary is drawn, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all credits".
I'm producing a webseries, each episode is 4 minutes, just saying ;-)
My short films have maxed out at 5m 4sec including credits. Great practice for starting as late as possible in a scene and stopping as soon as the goal is achieved.
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Yes David, that is TECHNICALLY a "short film". But I guarantee you that if you talk to an exec and say "Hey, want to watch my short film?" and he says yes... he is going to be PISSED if it's 40 minutes long and he isn't going to watch it.
None of my shorts are over 10 minutes long. One is less than a minute with credits.
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Wish you guys would offer a short script contest. :)
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You haven't got to mine yet, apparently! 7 minutes.
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If an exec says yes and the short is good enough, he'll not consider that xx minutes wasted. The exec can stop watching at any time. If he watches a five minute film and isn't impressed in the first two minutes, he might well stop watching it then. You might as well just make a minute-long trailer and send that to the exec to watch.
@Elisabeth: there was a short script contest. We believe the deadline was October 15, however we're not sure.
@Evelien and Dorien - If I remember it right then this was a specific horror or sci-fi or whatever contest and no general short contest. Only know for sure it was none of my genres and by this very specific and very specific doesn't count then. All short film writers deserve more chances as contests for short scripts are really rare.
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Current short screenwriting contest: https://www.stage32.com/happy-writers/contests/Stage-32-Short-Film-Scrip.... And the annual short film contest: https://www.stage32.com/contests/2nd-Annual-Stage-32-Short-Film-Contest. ;)
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Yes, Erik this is so true. I had a person ask why the limit wasn't even longer. For short film less is truly more. Check out the shorts of big name directors, all of them under 10 minutes. Martin Scorsese's The Big Shave (5:35) , Tim Burton's Vincent (6:25), Christopher Nolan's Doodlebug (2:59), Neill Blomkamp's Alive In Joburg (6:24) which became the breakout hit District 9. And there are many more. Sidenote - Please, people do not believe that a 40 minute short is okay if you are trying to use your short films as a calling card. It's not about how good the material is at that point, execs will not want to watch it bc most won't even start it. Even last year's Best Live Action Short was only 12 minutes.
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what bugs me about short movies is opening credits. Filmmakers spend too much screen time on credits & fancy company logos before the movie starts.
The short film contest is closed since Sept 28. The winning screenwriter of the short script contest will get produced and be flown to St Petersburg in Florida. The filmmaking crew will get a script for $ 30 or 40 - depending on the entry fee you paid and will get the awards (and money) when the film wins any short film contests. Wow. :))
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Yes, the Annual Short Film contest is closed for this year — keep an eye out for the next one. ;) The Short Script Contest closes soon, November 15 — being flown to Florida, having your script produced, being part of a team, having it shown to audiences and featured online is pretty awesome. I'm looking forward to seeing the winning script. ;)
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For inspiration, and perhaps for those who may not be familiar with this site... Short of the Week features some fantastic shorts. Enjoy! https://www.shortoftheweek.com.
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Beth is correct. Here was the original blog regarding the Short Script Contest with the $20K prize - https://www.stage32.com/blog/Stage-32-Short-Film-Script-Contest-Open-for...
Hi, Erik! It's written in the rules of the contest that the script must be 7-10 pages. My script is 3,5 pages. Can it be the reason of disqualification? Thank you
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No, but I would try to get it up to 7 pages :)
ooh! just saw this now (darn missed early bird rates). Does the 7-10 count the cover page with just the title on it?