Back on the Mainscreen

Short films are making a serious comeback, and that's good news for moviemakers looking for new markets

by Tom Allen | Published August 12, 1994

The feature film format has not always been as dominant a factor in the motion picture industry as it is today. Back in the 1930s and '40s, standard commercial fare included not only the feature but a Movietone newsreel, a cartoon and several short films as well. "Also Selected Short Subjects" underlined movie titles on theater marquees and lobby cards and was a familiar phrase to moviegoers across the country.

Then television came and altered the entertainment landscape significantly. Besides rendering Movietones and "chapters" obsolete, it introduced a new set of market imperatives that led ultimately to the disappearance of all manner of short programming front the big screen. Cut loose suddenly from their commercial moorings, short filmmakers took to the underground and set about demolishing conventions and enriching the art form with new modes of aesthetic and technical expression.

Now, after decades in relative obscurity, the short film is undergoing a revival which, if current trends continue, might well flourish into a renaissance. Ironically, powering its comeback is the very same force that buried it in the '50s: television, this time cable television. Back in the '70s and early '80s, short filmmakers completing their festival routes had but one option as far as TV was concerned: Home Box Office. In the mid 80s, PBS also started programming shorts. Today, broadcast markets around the world are opening up to American short films, while cable stations like Showtime, Bravo, A&E and Discovery are providing short filmmakers with the lion's share of opportunity at home. As they acquire short films in increasing numbers these stations are blazing a trail for upcoming networks like Bravo's Independent Film Channel and the Sundance Institute's Sundance Channel, both of which will look to the independent film world for much of their programming and devote regular segments to short film and video works.

Evidence of a revival lies in other areas as well. The festival circuit - the principal showcasing mechanism for shorts - has virtually doubled in size in the past 10 years and has gone from a way to get distribution to being almost like a distribution option in and of itself. Individually, the Seattle International Film Festival and the Sundance Film Festivals, among others, have enhanced their shorts programs by presenting them in groups, or "packages," related usually by theme, and expanding their short film awards categories. Alternative cinema groups continue springing up in big cities and have begun coordinating activities and sharing compilations and short film collections. A Los Angeles company called Strand Releasing has been theatrically distributing a compilation of Academy Award-nominated short films around major U.S. cities, and is operating in the black. And a man named Doug Piburn has established a venue in Hollywood called the Fellini Theater that screens nothing but short films year round.

So the tide clearly is turning, but where will it lead? Will short films ever really catch on again with mainstream audiences and, if so, is the short form an arena where filmmakers can begin recouping some money? Will the genre forever remain a costly rite of passage along the path to feature filmmaking?

Deep Currents

When the National Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences proposed in 1992 that the short film category be eliminated from the Oscar lineup by 1994, it galvanized short film devotees on all levels. Confronting the move at its heart was Academy board member Hillary Ripps, who co-authored a 91-page treatise that successfully argued the importance of maintaining the category, and by extension, preserving the art form. Her enthusiasm sprung in large part from her role as vice president of Chanticleer Productions, a Los Angeles-based organization as deeply committed to the short film revival effort as perhaps any other.

Founded by Jana Sue Memel and Jonathan Sanger in 1986, Chanticleer has been providing artists accomplished in other aspects of filmmaking with an opportunity to demonstrate their ability as directors. The "Discovery Program," as they call it, has produced 55 shorts to date and launched more than a few directing careers. Seventy percent of the people who have been through the program, in fact, have gone on to direct TV movies, series or features. Showtime, which airs the shorts both as pre-features and as part of its award-winning "30 Minute Movie" series, will in September begin airing Chanticleer's new "Directed By..." series, featuring short works directed by celebrity actors including JoBeth Williams, Laura Dern, Danny Glover and Treat Williams.

"We started (producing shorts) eight years ago," says Memel, who serves as executive producer of the "Directed By..." series. "My assessment is it's phenomenal for launching careers; it's really the only way to do it. But it's not a viable commercial format at this point, and I don't believe it ever will be." Why, then, is she positioning her company where the money isn't? "It's sort of like saving someone's life and then being responsible for that person. We're now the people the industry looks to to be doing it, so we feel an obligation tocontinue doing it. But economically there's no benefit."

Jeffrey Haniblin, co-founder of San Diego-based distributor Andalusian Pictures, does not share that view, even as his first ­of-its-kind traveling International Festival of Short Films struggles to remain solvent. Striving to build wider audience acceptance of short films, Hamblin conceived the idea of packaging prize-winning shorts with common themes and marketing them city by city in feature-length compilation form. The first one has entertained audiences in over 30 cities across the U.S. and Canada; the second one in nearly 20. So far the program has operated on a strictly commercial basis, deriving its funding entirely through ticket sales.

"We're actually coming very close to making a breakthrough," Hamblin explains. "But this type of endeavor - raising public awareness about the short film format and breaking down people's resistance to it - simply requires deeper pockets than we have right now. The potential is there and the audience is there, but it's fragmented and needs to be pulled together."

Hamblin has proven that with a strong promotion and advertising campaign one can entice a mainstream audience into seeing a string of well-made shorts. His second festival drew over 6,000 people in the Boston and San Francisco markets over a nine day period, but other markets not so heavily promoted were not so lucrative. Clearly, the cost of getting the word out beyond the art house circuit presents a major challenge to grassroots operators like Andalusian.

But even before the marketing effort even begins there are expenses that can break the bank of a small independent company. Lab fees for a string of shorts tend to run double those of ordinary features, in part because compilations containing, say, 10 short films, have 10 times the waste footage relative to a feature. Also, since only one or two prints are purchased instead of tens or hundreds, there are no quantity discounts. Add to that the cost of shipping prints from the domestic and overseas labs in which they were originally processed, and you are talking large sums (especially since lab prices in places like New Zealand, France and Belgium are astronomical by U.S. standards). So instead of the usual $1,500, Andalusian spends an average $6,000 per print. Then they start buying the advertising, and after all is said and done, pays a percentage of the box office to the film producers.

"Most people associate the short film format with lower production costs without realizing that on the distribution side it's just the opposite," Hamblin says. "The frustrating thing is that we know the market is there; we've proven it. When we've gone beyond print ads to postering, flyering, PR promotion and press reviews, we've gotten a very big response. But without sponsorship or some other type of funding to fill the gap, it'll be difficult to launch."

Hamblin has seen a few of his producer clients make back their production budgets and feels that down the road it could happen much more commonly. A theatrical run by itself, he believes, will earn back enough to cover a $35,000 film. "But theatrical is not the only outlet for shorts," he points out. "Where shorts are recouping their money is in TV distribution. There are 30-40 short films made each year that make significant amounts of money in TV. Several companies are out there selling to foreign markets exclusively."

One of those, Brooklyn-based Forefront Films, which presently has 30 shorts circulating the overseas film markets and 4estivals, had been working exclusively with features until it lurched almost accidentally into this brave new market. After picking up Mark Christopher's critically acclaimed The Dead Boys Club on a hunch and then quickly selling it to different Pay TV stations in Europe and Asia, the company was convinced the market was there. Now they sift through hundreds of submissions looking for films under 30 minutes, that tell good stories with minimal dialogue, and that fit into one of the burgeoning niche markets, like women's themes, gay themes and, of course, comedies.

"Europe is really where it's taking off," believes Forefront co-founder Megan O'Neill. "They use them as filler in between features, or in theme nights. The German pay TV station Premiere, for example, did a theme called "Dark Love," featuring film noir shorts about love. We sold them a film called Love after Death which became a part of that.

JoBeth Williams directing Mercedes Ruehl in the Showtime series "Directed By..."

"I think it's going to happen in the States, too, because as more arts channels pop up, they'll definitely pick up shorts. It's gonna hit in Hong Kong and Latin America also as more channels emerge. But Europe is the strongest and is driving this at the moment."

Echoing that sentiment is Nancy Walzog of New York ­based Tapestry International, another foreign sales distributor of short films. "We're finding the half-hour format to be pretty viable overseas," she explains. "There are a lot of loyal supporters (in foreign markets). It went by the wayside domestically as cable companies felt the need to use every possible minute between films to promote their schedules with promos or free music videos. So why buy short films? Domestic cable companies don't need them."

Don't tell that to the people at Bravo, the Film and Arts Network, who have long placed a primacy on acquiring shorts, and will soon feature them with even greater regularity on their new Independent Film Channel. Back in March the network held its first-ever "Independent Spirit Weekend," brazenly running a program of 19 short films directly opposite the Academy Awards ceremonies. The program enjoyed surprising success.

"We believe filmmaking is all-encompassing and transcends the studio system's product," remarks a Bravo spokesperson. "Independent filmmakers are important people and (the short film) is an important art form. It's the part of our programming that is most original and diverse. We look at filmmaking from a director's point of view. If he or she only needs 10 minutes to relate a message instead of two hours, we want to facilitate that."

Alive with Possibilities

The gains short filmmakers have made on the television front have not come easy, but as the poet J.G. Holland put it, "There is no royal road to anything ... that which grows fast withers as rapidly; that which grows slowly endures."

PBS first began broadcasting short film packages on its Alive TV program back in 1985. Based in Minneapolis/St. Paul, the program has been the main constant showcase for short form film and video ever since. American Playhouse, another PBS series, also broadcasted short films on occasion during this time.

Neil Sieling, executive producer of Alive TV, explains how the roughly 200 short pieces his show has produced made their way into the living rooms of the nearly two million viewers watching each program: "We raise the money, produce or acquire the pieces, assemble the packages and send them off to Washington, where they're sent out on satellite. Any one of 300-plus PBS stations can then pull them down and run them whenever they want over a three-year period as individual packages."

"The foundation of our series is that it's contemporary and unlike anything which is on regular TV. We're like an ice breaker giving people a taste of what is to cone."

The compilations being exhibited in theatrical venues like the Fellini Theater are contributing greatly to the overall increase in awareness and respect for the short film format. Founder Doug Piburn feels the greatest obstacle he must overcome is the ingrained hesitancy among theater bookers to purchasing shorts, and the resistance - film critics have to reviewing them. "These people are commercially oriented, and the nature of short films, let's face it, is non-commercial," he remarks.

Director Danny Glover and actress "Erika Alexander in Override, part of Showtime's "Directed By..." series.

Piburn is trying to put together a non-profit organization that would function as a financing mechanism for his endeavor, which involves curating, exhibiting and distributing short films. He envisions a member-supported arrangement rather than corporate or NEA sponsorship, but seems open to all options. "In this town there are people who really believe in the short film. Even powerful people. I haven't tapped into that crowd yet but I think ultimately they may jibe with my whole mission, which is to promote independent short film."

Down in the Trenches

With an expanding network of organizations dedicated to furthering the cause of short filmmakers on the local level, the overall revival is not likely to lose momentum anytime soon. Here in Seattle, groups like 911 Media Arts, Scarecrow Video and Essential Cinema of Seattle are tirelessly developing ways to cater to film and video artists at the grassroots level. Essential Cinema president Robert Graves is arranging pre­screenings of shorts related in some way to the silents and early classics his organization is bringing to Seattle's art house cinemas. "This is for those who are reluctant to see an entire program of short films," explains Graves. "It's a way of working people into shorts ... by presenting them the way they used to be presented, which was before features."

Scarecrow Video, meanwhile, is devoting a section of its store to the works of experimental Northwest filmmakers. Assistant Manager Sue Purton is compiling locally-produced shorts on videocassette for public rental and eventual national distribution. "I don't think it's a far-fetched idea," she says.

"There are very strong film communities out there that we could reach through an existing distributor."

As Victor Hugo said, "No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has conic." Or, he night have added, an idea whose time has cone again.

Tom Allen is a screenwriter who studied English literature at the University cf Notre Dame and film at New York University. He has made three short films and lives in Seattle with his wife and son.

COMMENTS | POST A COMMENT

POST A COMMENT

OUR PRIVACY POLICY | We will not publish or sell or share your email address or other personal information. Read more.

Name:
Email:
URL:

Type the word you see below:

Comment:

Remember my personal information

Notify me of follow-up comments?

SITE DELIVERY OPTIONS

Advertisement