What Makes A Good Short Film?

A short film needs to tell a convincing and altogether emotive story in a short period of time, sometimes in less than 5 minutes. Everything from sound, visuals, costume, mis-en-scene and many more contribute to the success or failure of a short film.

1. The story features 3 or 4 cast members - no more. Having loads of characters in a short film could confuse and over complicate things and make unwanted stress for the director. The limitted cast will also make it eaiser for the audience to have a conncection and relate with the characters A short film is not a feature. It has little room for subplots, secondary characters, montages, or epic scope. It covers a single dilemma and resolves it in some way by the end. My short film has 3 characters which all have unique personailities that should appeal to many people.

2. There’s a twist at the beginning and a twist at the end. In many short films the story is unpredictable; the audience is constantly kept on their toes. The beginning twist is to draw the audience in and keep them watching and the end twist is there to make the audience want more and for it to be memerable.This is exactly what viewers want in every television show, feature film, and short film, no matter what the genre.

3. Produced and distrubusted by famous companies. Many succesful short films have been made my famous and established film companies that have the money and contacts to make an amazing short film. However, if an independant short film has the right message, content and story than it can be as succesful as big short films e.g. award winning short film 'Beat' and 'But Milk is Important' which is a tounching story about mental illness.