How to write a short film
How to write a short film
How To Make a Short Film (Writing the Concept)
How to make a short film warrants understanding how to write a short film!
How to write a short film warrants understanding how to write a concept for a short film!
I’ve turned this guide into a short YouTube narrative if that’s your flavor here
A concept is the very basic idea of the film which gives you an outline of the final story for the main character in your movie. Look at the concept of the movie, Wanted (2008).
A guy named Wesley living a traditional life bounded by the structure of a 9–5 job, but somewhere in the back of his mind, somewhere deeper in his thoughts, he knows he wasn’t born to live this way. He was meant to break out and transform into someone much stronger with the journey to leave an everlasting mark on the world. This was the concept of this well-put-together movie.
We’ve identified what is a concept with a solid example, now we have to figure out how to write a concept. I agree upon the fact how sitting down and writing something is one of the most difficult things in the world and a lot of filmmakers would rather jump off a bridge than to sit down and write the movie they want to make.
It doesn’t matter if you’re one of those guys or not, I’m going to give you a simple technique that helped me over the past ten years to write the concept of my films which I‘ve directed.
The technique is made up of a template with 2 points.
Number 1: Identify your main character. In Wanted, the main character is Wesley. He‘s a simple guy, living a simple life with a simple 9–5 job, constantly taking crap from the people around him and lacking the interest to stand up for himself and change his situation.
Number 2: What is your main character’s problem? Wesley hasn’t accepted his life 100% and deep down inside he aspires to change his situation. His main problem is how this thought in his mind about being someone impactful is messing with his brain and stopping him to peacefully accept his current existence. On the surface level, he seems peaceful, but on a deeper level, he knows something’s wrong and it needs to be changed.
When you combine these points, you get the concept of your film. So point number 1, identify your main character. Is the character male or female and what is the character’s day to day routine? Point number 2, identify the main problem your character’s facing. The problem could be on a surface level like somebody trying to kill your character or the problem could be on a deeper level like your character trying to figure out why was he sent to this world?
We’ve cracked the simple code of writing a concept, now let’s look at a simple technique to understanding ‘How to write a good concept.’
We as an audience understand how Wesley’s a simple guy with a miserable life and something’s happening in the back of his mind making him question his existence and teasing him to turn it around. This concept crawls deep into our skin and makes us wanna re-analyze our own lives and wonder what if? This is the mark of a memorable concept.
But let’s look at one of the most mishandled concepts we’ve seen in a long time, which disappointingly came from Marvel, the concept of Iron Man 3!
This film is about a guy who has once again become reckless, stupid and irresponsible like he used to be before he became Iron Man. He used to understand the power he possessed to change the world for good, but not anymore.
Iron Man 3 was one of the most irresponsibly written movies we’ve seen with an uninspiring main character and that‘s the mark of a bad concept where you don’t feel the need to follow the protagonist till the end.
Look at Tony Stark from Iron Man 1 to understand a brilliant concept and look at Tony Stark from Iron Man 3 to understand an uninspiring concept.
We’re living in a time where everybody has the access to cheap filmmaking tools which is great, but the sad part is a lot of those film directors choose to make movies with badly written concepts. A lot of these films are generally filled with sexual content that leaves a negative impact on our generation’s mindset or they usually portray meaningless characters with meaningless problems.
But now that we’ve understood what is a concept, how to write a concept and a simple technique for writing a good concept, I hope some aspiring film director out there will take what I‘ve’ said, add their own twist and come up with an idea that would inspire other aspiring film directors to aim for even greater concepts.
On a closing note, I would love to read your comments on how to write a short film. Follow me here on Medium for some storytelling goodness every now and then.
In the hopes of connecting with story lovers all over the world, this is Mr. Zeecon, in the making of a great story.
How to Write a Short Film That Gets Noticed
W riting short films can be daunting, but it’s one of the best ways to improve your screenwriting and get noticed. But many a drawer is littered with short film scripts that will never see the light of day, much less the light of a Kino.
Writing a short film can be a lesson in filmmaking, but it can also be a calling card for finding representation or financing. So how do you write a great short film? What makes a short script different from a feature? And where can you turn if you want people to pay attention?
Today, we’re giving you the nine essential do’s and don’ts of writing short films. Stick to the rules and you’ll be writing short films that connect with readers, audiences, and agents — not just credit card companies.
SHORT FILM DEFINITION
What is a short film?
A short film is a movies that isn’t long enough to be a feature length film. While there is no official consensus on this, it generally means that your short film has a total running time of 45-min or less, including the credits. This varies
How long is a short film?
HOW TO WRITE A SHORT FILM
1. Keep it simple
If there is one universal rule for writing short films, it’s this. Remember to K.I.S.S. — Keep it simple, students.
Many screenwriters complicate stories that can be told quite simply. This is not to say you shouldn’t challenge yourself. Push the limits, go for what you love, write what feels right.
But making a mountain from a molehill is never a positive. Don’t try to cram too many twists and turns when brainstorming your short film.
Multiple storylines, time periods, or points of view can certainly be pulled off — but they should all raise a great big red flag. Complexity requires a compelling reason in a short film.
The more complicated you make your story, the more danger you’ll encounter in connecting to an audience. That’s because you’re straying from this simple rule: K.I.S.S.
Here’s a great example of a short film, The Privilege Game, that keeps it simple and hits hard in every way.
The Privilege Game is a succinct and almost perfect short film.
There is a concept known as Iceberg Storytelling.
This is used as a metaphor for telling a very bare and stripped down story that gives the viewer just enough information to build strong emotions, and allow them to fill in the blanks with their own imaginations.
There is a cool article on iceberg storytelling written by filmmaker Rob Hardy, where he explains the concept through Ernest Hemingway’s short story For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn.
How to write a short film
2. Pick a unique concept
You want to get noticed. You want to make something good. So it makes perfect sense that you’ll look around to see what’s generating heat right now. That’s all fine and good.
But jumping on the bandwagon is a surefire way to set yourself up for frustration. Copying the latest trends in features or the festival circuit is the number one way to get your script, and your film, lost in the shuffle.
What’s the solution? You need to find a unique concept. Even if you really do love the what’s in vogue right now, you still need to come up with an out-of-the-box, personal take on your material.
Writing short films requires new and innovative ideas.
The short film One-Minute Time Machine exemplifies the kind of short film ideas you might want to come up with: A unique concept. One location. Two actors.
One-Minute Time Machine (2014)
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3. Find a clever twist
Choosing a unique concept doesn’t mean you have to start from scratch. Whether you’re writing drama short films, comedy, sci-fi, horror, or something else — telling a familiar story in a fresh way can get you noticed.
Most of the best short films use tried-and-true tales as their foundation. This happens often in features as well.
Think Shrek and Maleficent. Fairy tales with a twist. A fresh point of view.
Draw from folklore, current events, or history. Take these stories in bold new directions and you might get a winner at short film festivals.
You might even wind up at the Oscars.
The Door tells the story of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident through the eyes of one man. It’s a compelling angle on a well-known event.
The Academy Awards nominated «The Door» for the best short film category in 2008
The Door follows all three rules we’ve covered so far: it keeps the story simple, involves a unique concept, and approaches the material with a creative twist.
Take a look at the first page of the screenplay for The Door and see if you can spot all three of these forces at play. Click below to read the full scene:
How to write a short film that gets you noticed
One man, one mission: it’s simple.
The setting, and especially the particulars of the man’s mission — prying off a door — are unique, specific.
And the familiar scene of a cozy family apartment juxtaposed against otherworldly and mysterious surroundings, with a guard shouting off screen, cleverly twists our expectations. It engages the audience. Are we in a post-apocalyptic alternate reality? Is this our world, and if so, when is it? We want to keep watching to find out what Nikolai does, and discover what world we’re in.
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4. Pick a genre and go for it
When writing a short film that’ll get into short film festivals and get you noticed, it’s vital to pick one genre and stick to it. Remember, writing short films requires you to keep it simple. Going with one genre gives you a pre-set guide to storytelling simplicity.
The Hollywood graveyard is filled with features and short movies that blend genres. These films leave audiences stranded in a “What the heck am I supposed to be watching?” gray area.
Horror? Comedy? Romance? Western? Drama? Especially when writing a short film, you’ll want to be able to point to your genre and say with confidence, “That’s what this is!”
Mixing and subverting genres — yes, by all means, yes. Just not if you’re writing short films with the goal of getting Hollywood’s attention.
Take all your ideas, personality, passion, and channel them into a single genre. And grab your genre by the horns.
Writing short films means picking a genre and sticking to it.
Even the world’s best filmmakers run into trouble when they fail to stick to one genre. The Coen brothers are objectively, subjectively, collectively brilliant. But Hail, Caesar! tanked in every way. What genre is it? Comedy? Thriller? Gladiator movie? Drama? Political satire? 1950s period piece?
The answer is, “Well, yeah, I guess, sort of,” to all of those questions.
Writing short films: pick your genre and chomp at it!
So what we’re saying is:
Pick one and only one genre. Whether it’s romance, horror, comedy, or drama, the choice is yours.
Then go ahead and write your short film within the confines of your genre. The 2013 short film Lights Out knows its genre, and owns it. This three-minute horror film led directly to a feature film for writer and director David F. Sandberg.
How to Write a Short Film
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Table of Contents
With the explosion in digital cinema and gear becoming more affordable, making short films has never been more possible. However, just because a movie is short doesn’t mean it’s necessarily easier. Since the basis for every film is its story, learning how to write a short film is probably the most important part of your workflow. Indeed, telling a meaningful and memorable story in a short amount of time can be even harder than one that is longer.
The crafting of the story is everything before starting production, and the more developed your story is ahead of time, the better. No matter what genre of film you are making, follow these steps to get your story in the best shape possible.
Clarity
You may already have a concept in mind for what you want to shoot. Maybe it’s about a certain topic, theme, character or genre you’re interested in. For your short film script, pick out what you find most interesting about the subject matter and ask yourself the following question: What is the emotional experience that I want the audience to have as a result of watching this?
The emotional question is important since this is not an essay. You’re engaging feelings, not the intellect. The greater clarity you have on this subject, the better since it will provide the core around which you build your story.
The other reason to have absolute clarity on this point is that short films are… short! The longest ones are around 50 minutes, and most are much shorter. You don’t have time to make the story about multiple things. Having a singularity of purpose will help you simplify and be selective when you get to the writing.
Structure
For the next part of breaking down your concept, start to think about how you would deliver that experience to a viewer in a clear and engaging way. You’re going to deconstruct that experience to its basic parts.
For example, imagine that your story is about a blind kid who thinks one of his neighbors is abducting children. No one else suspects the neighbor but this kid, which is the point. You want the audience to experience the power of insight rather than sight.
Describe what it’s like to be a blind kid (taken from Oleksandr Ostapchuk’s story Child at Home on Artgrid)
Now that you have that bit of clarity, how might you lay that experience out? It’s important to remain abstract in this phase and not get too dragged down into the story elements just yet. You’re only focusing on the power of “insight” over “sight.”
To answer this next part of the question, ask yourself why you’re writing this story to begin with. Perhaps you have this plot in mind and you feel as though people are too distracted to “see” the real problems in the world.
If that’s the case, then the experience of the story can be laid out as follows:
Brainstorming
After you have the elementary structure for your story, now comes the part where you fill in the details. Imagine the different worlds within your story and start writing out possibilities of events within it.
To help you understand, imagine you’re a tour guide in a big city. The most important thing you’ll want to do, starting out, is to become acquainted with every nook and cranny in town that you can. When clients finally meet you, you’ll able to craft their trip specifically to the type of trip they want to have
Imagine you’re a tour guide who needs to know every nook and cranny in the city (taken from Jakob Owens’ Along the Canals story on Artgrid)
Going back to our story, the first thing you’ll want to do is look at the different aspects of this kid’s life relevant to the story. How he became blind isn’t that important, but how he spends his time is VERY important. If he hears the other boys when he’s by himself, what he was doing when he heard them is integral to the story. That would constitute its own list.
Other aspects of writing a short film may include the neighbor’s occupation/identity, ways the blind navigate and ways to break into someone’s property. Coming up with as many possibilities for each of these can rack your brain, but this part of the writing process is one you don’t want to shortchange. With each new idea can come another possibility to elevate your story and fine-tune it to your desired experience.
How to Write an Effective Screenplay for a Short Film
This article was co-authored by Melessa Sargent. Melessa Sargent is the President of Scriptwriters Network, a non-profit organization that brings in entertainment professionals to teach the art and business of script writing for TV, features and new media. The Network serves its members by providing educational programming, developing access and opportunity through alliances with industry professionals, and furthering the cause and quality of writing in the entertainment industry. Under Melessa’s leadership, SWN has won numbers awards including the Los Angeles Award from 2014 through 2021, and the Innovation & Excellence award in 2020.
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Short films are a great way to get started in your film career. A good short film can help you develop your style and vision for a feature film. One of the most important aspects of a short film is a screenplay that is engaging for your viewers. Start by brainstorming ideas, concepts, and characters for your film. Then, draft a script that grabs readers with action and cool characters right away. Make sure you polish your draft and get feedback on it so the script is at its best before you shoot it or try to get it made.
How to Make a Short Film: Things You Should Know
Short films are motion pictures that aren’t long enough in running time to be considered a feature film. They are generally 40 minutes or less and can even be 30 seconds long! To qualify as a short film at film festivals, the running time should be less than 15 minutes.
Short films can be of any genre (e.g., horror, comedy) or method/mode of filmmaking (e.g., documentary, animation). Making a short film is great practice to get hands-on experience in filmmaking. Often, short films become feature films; for example, Whiplash (2013), starring J.K. Simmons, directed by Damien Chazelle.
How to make a short film
Before you start, here are a few things you will need:
Now that you know what you’ll need, let’s walk through the steps of how to make a short film in detail.
Pre-Production 🎬
You may be tempted to grab your camera and start shooting right away. But beware, there is an old adage – every dollar and every minute spent on pre-production will save your THREE in post!
Before shooting a short film, you need to prepare a script, create a budget, and recruit the cast and crew.
If this is your first short, try making one that is approximately 5 to 6 minutes before attempting films of longer duration.
Prepare a Script
The script is of utmost importance. It sets the stage for your project – it’ll determine much of what you’ll need to shoot the short film such as number of actors, locations etc.
There are 2 ways to obtain a script
Create a Storyboard
Storyboards are a pictorial representation of each scene, shot-by-shot, as per the description given in the script. It is close to something like a comic book.
If you aren’t artistic, no worries! You can use stick figures to represent the actors and simple shapes to represent the elements in the scene. The storyboard does not need to be an artistic masterpiece- it is merely a visualization for reference for shoot day.
You can find a free storyboard template here.
Cast and Crew It!
Before you cast actors/actresses in your film, you need to recruit the crew. This includes the producer, 1st AD (first assistant director), cinematographer, director, editor and sound technician.
Based on your budget, you can hire professionals for the job or skip the role entirely. As soon as you have the crew in place, create a casting call for actors and have auditions. Getting family and/or close friends to act is a more economical way to finish shooting a short film. But if you want professional actors, the following websites are great to place casting calls:
Pro Tips:
Filming 📹
Now that you’ve done most of your pre-production work, it’s almost time to shoot! But before you pull out your camera to shoot, you need to scout for locations.
Location Scouting
Also called recce (pronounced ‘rey-key’, it’s short form for reconnaissance), site survey or tech scout, the director and cinematographer will look for potential locations for shooting the film. When selecting a location, you must determine whether the location is suitable for shooting and if there is potential for lighting and sound related problems.
Getting Permission to Shoot
It is important to also get written permission to shoot if you are shooting in a public place like a park. You also must get permission from the people who will and could be in the background.
Filming day
Here we are! Finally! It’s filming day!
Before you start shooting:
Post Production: 💻
After shooting is complete, it is time to edit the film, add sound effects/music/voiceovers and visual effects and after that, the FINAL CUT!
Edit the Film (1 st EDIT):
In the 1 st edit, import the visuals onto an editing software – there are many video editing software programs today. If you do not want to spend on software, Apple (iMovie) and Windows (Windows Movie Maker) already have software that comes with the Operating system. If you want to use Pro-grade editing software, I recommend Final Cut Pro (FCP) for Mac and Adobe Premier Pro for PC.
Before you edit:
Music / Sound Effects
After you put the scenes in order of the story, it’s time to add the music and/or sound effects. It is important to remember to separate the video tracks and audio tracks because by doing this, you can modify volume and voices without changing anything in the video.
Re-editing the Film (2 nd EDIT)
After you work on the first edit and add music/ sound effects (this will give you a basic idea of how the film looks), review it with your crew, show it to people you know well and get feedback. Be strict and remove shots that are not necessary. If there is a scene that seems like it is dragging, you can add cuts between actor and dialogue. You can also add transitions, to improve the flow of the short film.
Pro Tip:
Make sure to grade. Grading your film will make it look professional. Here is an example:
AAAAAND….. Final cut!
Once re-editing has been done, re-look the film one last time with your crew, and check if all suggestions have been incorporated. Get final feedback on the film and ensure all issues encountered during editing have been rectified. Once that has been done, you can start showing it to people.
Pro-tip: Watch a lot of short films before you make one of your own. That way, you can learn a lot of film-making techniques and try and use them when making your own film. Here are some short films I loved:
Duration: 18 minutes
Starring: JK Simmons
Directed by: Damien Chazelle
Story: Andrew Neiman, an ambitious jazz drum player, enrols himself in the fictional Shaffer music conservatory, where he has to learn from a teacher, Terrence Fletcher, who bullies and insults him to the point of a nervous breakdown.
Video courtesy: YouTube
Duration: 6 minutes
This computer generated animated short film was produced by Pixar studios and written by Alan Barillaro. It is centered around a hungry baby sandpiper bird who wants to get over her fear of water.
Video courtesy: YouTube
#3: Life
Duration: 2 minutes
This is a simple and silent short film directed by Vignesh Venugopal, which carries the Tag line- “Life is simple. Why complicate it?”.
It is essential to make sure every second of a short film count. The steps and tips given above will help you understand how to make a short film.
You can learn more about film and how you can improve your skills by applying to the Nashville Film Institute here.