Sat, 2020-Dec-19 14:33 (GMT)
Now, I get that screenwriters write shorts in the hope of a production option (free). To get recognized for a name/voice that we hold dear. Through which, we in the hope of a big company spotting us (talent) - What are your thoughts?
Now, okay. Me, that short only took me one day to write! But, it's my creation - talent! ~ Pay me something for it? $100 / 200? ~ Mr. Film maker, it is after all why you made contact with me.
What are your thoughts hereto?
A happy new year. And, Merry Christmas to you and yours.
Most (maybe all I think) who've approached me re: shorts over time (admittedly not the largest sample size) have been younger persons/film-school-students/recent grads who are lookin' to do something for practice, project, portfolio etc. Not a lot of $ to throw around and I'm all down to help out that sort of individual anyway if possible (within reason, no one is likely gettin' a feature-length script from me gratis lol).
I mean, if one's able to collab with someone more established or well off who wants to shoot a short and isn't writing it themselves go get that $ (and they may well be out there but I haven't seen em yet).
Have a great Christmas also Barry! Always good to see ya!
Yeah. I don't mind helping the students. Most have it tough. I wants gave a student one of my shorts, a five page.
My thoughts are that it's up to you.
I gained a lot of experience giving short scripts away, experience you can't pay for.
I still do a lot of work on spec because I see a greater reward down the line.
IF they do a good job with your script, aren't they helping you out too?
CJ and John, Right you both are. A comment I got from another, was; You are been paid for your short. Not in cash, and in now. But, in the long run via exposure.
You both have a Merry and blessed Christmas.
To be frank, anybody telling you that exposure is a good reason to write short scripts most likely hasn't ever had a short script made and probably has zero experience of the festival world. This is why it's important you do your due-diligence on the people giving you advice, especially on forums.
Ask that person to name the screenwriter behind any of the last five Oscar winning short films. This concept of getting noticed is nice in principle but it's naive, immature, and unrealistic. It's also egotistical and smacks of a passive attitude to career building right up there with believing that winning awards will result in becoming a hot name that draws in offers.
The short film world is a huge bubble packed mostly with non-commercially orientated content screened almost exclusively to other filmmakers who are only attending because their own film is part of the line up. The only people out of that crowd who get highlighted are the directors and lead actors. Nobody is talking about the writers (unless its a writer-director) but it doesn't particularly matter because the decision makers aren't listening either. I'm generalizing here but that's 99% of the film festival circuit in a nutshell.
This is before even getting into having the right voice and skills and standout within that bubble. It's a highly political and somewhat pretentious marketplace where most mainstream voices are going to fall flat. Unless your career aspirations are to make artistic films with progressive intellectual messages which tend to rely on arts funding to get made, you're barking up the wrong tree.
You main motivation for writing and marketing short scripts should be gaining experience and building networks.
There is so much to learn outside of the craft of writing that will benefit any writer trying to build a career. You can learn how to converse with directors. How to negotiate an option. You can learn how to supply a script. How to discuss changes. Chances are, you're going to watch multiple projects fail to get started, never mind finished. You're going to watch people hack up your work. You're going to gain your first IMDb credits. You're going to experience the apathy that comes with releasing a film into the wild or maybe even some negativity. It's brutal and it's better to face that brutality via something you wrote in a week than something your slaved over for years.
The networking is also where most of the prospects lie. There is a chance you are going to form bonds with people who want to continue their journey alongside you and that's powerful if they are just as ambitious as you are and want to get to a similar destination. You can also form working relationships with actors and crew who may mention you to others in the future as they carve out their own careers. I know of a short film director who secured a relationship with a wealthy investor keen to turn producer who flew the entire cast and crew of his first short film out to LA to attend a minor festival they'd won an award in. That's highly unusual but any festival your short screens at is at least an excuse to attend and meet new people. Then, of course, we have credit building which, at least, bolsters your IMDb/resume and may result in you being taken a little more seriously as an eager amateur keen to turn pro.
So really, that's where the benefits lie in my experience as someone who gave away a lot of short scripts before they broke in. The question you have to ask yourself is, are they worth throwing away over a couple of hundred dollars?
the decision was a no-brainer for me – i had an idea that took me three pages to resolve – no one is going to pay for that, but i'm guessing their may be some directors or actors who would enjoy the process of executing it
the "scriptette" can be found here: https://www.scriptrevolution.com/scripts/youre-early
[ edited script link as the apostrophe in you're was causing issues - apols to anyone who got derailed by this ]
so far, i've given permission to someone in Germany to do a German-language version of it (i'm Australian) – the understanding being that they do not have exclusive rights to the screenplay and i retain the right to allow others create their own shorts from my script, if i choose to
It depends. Personally, I wouldn't pay that much for a short unless I had a large budget. (Remember, I'm a writer too..) I would also not expect to make much unless it was a large company. What I would do, should one want to option one of mine, is that I be involved in the development and/or production. I've only optioned two that I have not written. The first one was for $0 but I included the writer in the process and the other $50. I really only have one script that I'd let go without future involvement but I'm totally fine if they never get made. That being said, if the person approaching me to shoot my script is a heavy hitter, I'd be a lot more likely to hand it over without a penny exchanging hands.
There are a lot of variables that really would determine a fee and it could be very different from project to project.
I hear you Kevin... My shorts that are under 10 pagers I'd option for 0$. My other more lengthy shorts I'd ask for a months rent money. If approached by a reputable production house ( me seeing the high quality of their past films). I'd gladly option it to them for 0$. For reason of having my name/credit attached to a high quality produced film... Yes, please! That said, I once had a "producers" who said he was a reputable, known producer. And he wanting to option one of my under 10 pages short. After first doing my web-surfing homework on him, and viewing the very poor quality of the films he had made... I had to respectfully lie to him, telling him its already been optioned. I could not have my name attached to what I envisioned he'd produce. Students, I'll always help out!
Rather than "no", try to always say "not now". It's a lot less harsh on the recipient and keeps the door open incase you do change your mind in the future.
One tries just about every tactic in this journey. For me, after a LARGE number of features I tried writing a short since I'd heard positives about them serving as proof-of-concepts, foot-in-the-door opportunities, etc. I gave them three chances (wrote three shorts) before I conceded. I found two things: They were just as hard to pitch, and in fact seemed to take a lot more time to write than an equivalent feature, proportionately. So, my 14 page short took me 2 weeks, but I tended to get a solid first draft of a full 100 page feature in 3 weeks!
Well, like you folks, I wasn't going to give up on my shorts and let them collect dust, so I figured I'd collect them all together into a compilation/anthology feature, and hope for better luck. As it turned out, putting together all three of the shorts still totaled only 40 pages. Even a wraparound story wasn't going ot turn 40 pages into a feature. So, I wrote one more 20-page short (never even got around to pitching it separately) and mashed everything together into a fresh 90 page feature.
Well, that "better luck" I'd hoped for hasn't yet come to pass, with the feature in question, but I'm still happy that I now have something that seems more marketable. Time will tell, but this might be an approach for you to try if you have a bunch of shorts lying around:
https://www.scriptrevolution.com/scripts/scary-stories-for-a-summer-beac...
(1st ten pages available and, yeah yeah, worst script cover ever!)
Which came from these shorts:
https://www.scriptrevolution.com/scripts/toaster
https://www.scriptrevolution.com/scripts/corridor
https://www.scriptrevolution.com/scripts/find-me-at-the-roadside
https://www.scriptrevolution.com/scripts/the-girl
@Steve Garry Never considered a compilation or anthology feature...BUT did watch one this week - 13th Locker on Amazon, 4 chilling cautionary tales with a wrap around, runtime about 1 hour 42 minutes. Sorta Twilight Zone-ish. Interesting way to find good homes for your orphan shorts.
EDIT:
Sounds like a good idea IF you can find a producer or filmmaker interested in making one. I've written about 30-40 shorts of which a dozen or so have been showcased on STS. 13 of my shorts have been translated into quick and easy to read entertainment written in not-so-wordy prose and are self-published on Amazon under the title of Aisle Seat.
Heck yeah, I'd love to find a home for my shorts as an anthology feature with some sorta of wrap around storytelling device!
Honestly, I so prize my intellectual output (I'm my own biggest fan, ha ha) that the last thing I'd ever permit is to have something I sweated over to end up in a figurative drawer somewhere, ha
But no, as to marketing or promoting this 'compilation' of my four short, I just did the query blast thing that I did for years pre-COVID. I think I responded to a few 'horror' leads on InkTip with it. At least once on VPF, to a big producer there. I'll give you his response - which I couln't repond to without paying another $10!
"Nothing personal, it just didn't grab us. I have made an anthology film and they are really hard to pull off. The problem is keeping the audience interested and keeping a consistent tone. If there is a story that they are not into then they check out of the movie while that story plays out. It’s doubly confusing if there are multiple directors. Additionally your stories seem to all have a different tone."
Of course, I think this is stupid, because the diversity of the four stories is part of the charm, at least so I thought. (And don't you hate that "didn't grab us" business?!)
But in other words, there's really no specialized way to market anything. Except maybe for seeing a few opportunities to subsequently get one of the short made as a proof-of-concept etc. But I'd only do that if the producer understood the legal consequences - that I'd still want to be able to do the short as part of the anthology. In other words, you need that lawyer!
Good luck to all!
PS. I'm having a big problem with a sticky "s" key; hence the dropped S's in some of my typing. Guess I need a new keyboard.
@Steve Thank you for sharing your experience with compilation/anthology features.
I am actually writing an anthology feature that includes Heist (https://www.scriptrevolution.com/scripts/heist-0) which is a shortened version of Last Thursday (https://www.scriptrevolution.com/scripts/last-thursday) along with four other stories of a chaotic nature. They are connected partly by characters that overlap, even though there are decades between the stories. I'm working on writing the actual stories first but I think the hard part will be the continuity of theme throughout separate stories.
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and Wild Tales (Relatos salvajes) are good examples of how these can be done well. Both of these were nominated for Oscars.
CJ. Yeah, never say NO! ~ I was been expressive in my post. One must always be professional and polite.
Hi Steve. Quoting you: ...my 14 page short took me 2 weeks, but I tended to get a solid first draft of a full 100 page feature in 3 weeks! I was in this same boat when I started writing shorts. I found my reason to be that I was mindset on writing features, and as such, I was overthinking my short - trying to cram a long story IDEA into a shorter version/format. Which in its own is not really that easy! You really gotta cut the fat as they say.
Re- compilation. I took all my shorts and compiled a book via Amazon, kindle; A collection of short movie scripts. It was unsuccessful with respect to sales. But, made for good Christmas presents.
What a good thread! I'll add that when I chose to write shorts, I didn't really have the problem with them going overly long. I started out with one single "scene" that basically I had to expand into something intelligible - they all tend to still have 3 acts and normal structure. The 20-pager is only that long because there are some long dialogue sequences that pad the page count. I'm sure that even it is only a 15 minute film. But yeah, if a lot of you have material, there are lots of ways you can resuscitate them for marketing purposes - especially if you can group them into some sort of theme. G'luck!
Hi Steve. Write your short story... Don't concern yourself with page count and or whether it has 2 or 4 acts? Just write your story as it comes to you. Your story wants out. Let it out. It wants to be what it is! Not told what to be. ~ Having a mindset of "writing-rules" is gonna kill your story! Yes, Formating is very important. As is not to have (you mentioned) to long a dialogue. The best way to break down long continues dialogue is not to shorten it. In which you may lose telling the reader necessary information. Split the dialogue by adding a simple one-sentence action line. Or, have another character chirp-in. This you can do visa-vers if your action writing is too long?
Re- shorts. They generally under 30 pages. 40 Tops. The shorter the script/story, the less the necessity to have and or follow act count.
If you to maximize the chances of your short scripts getting made, you need to aiming for more like fifteen pages and under. Most are in the five to ten page range as short film festival slots tend to be ten minutes. While people make shorts that run longer, they are rarer.
Page count has nothing to do with the necessity to have acts. You still need to tell a complete and structured story. My shorts, which tend to be around six or seven pages, have five acts.
I can't see why anybody would want to make an anthology unless everything was connected similar to something like Pulp Fiction. The potential lack of an overriding story is one issue but the logistical demands on the filmmaker are likely to shoot through the roof if they effectively have to make multiple movies within a movie. That's before even getting into the credit and compensation nightmares of trying to establish who's the real leads in the film.
Just keep things simple, if you are trying to gain experience and credits; sub ten page shorts that are very cheap to make and will appeal to students and aspiring filmmakers. Hand them out for free, keep a tight leash on the option period, and take the lessons learned along with the feeling of validation as your compensation.
Somewhat related question. Short, for me, as a term, is a tad misleading. I completely understand keeping content to a minimum, especially if the aim is the short film festival circuit.
In Canada, we have TV short film festivals, sometimes showcasing short films from around the world, which can be anywhere from two minutes to thirty minutes each. Usually, if the running time is more than thirty minutes, made for TV movie. Not exact of course, just usually.
Also in Canada, many short film fests are outdoors, which have all been either canceled due to pandemic restrictions and/or made virtual only. To be honest, it's not going well for short films in Canada. Because, of course, directors/producers/organizations can only do low budget, often micro budget, by comparison to other countries who deal with higher budgets, and can't, for whatever reason, factor in the cost for pandemic restrictions. All things considering, that puts a serious limit on things for Canadian shorts.
My question is, are there other terms beside "short" that could be used?
So, to summarize shorts from what I'm reading, short scripts do not make money unless they have a thread to tie them all together.
examples of strong threads would be CSI, Peek Blinders, superman, etc.
Examples of weak threads would be The Twilight Zone, three stooges, comedy skits like Saturday Night Live, etc.
But for a short to be profitable on it's own is nil to highly doubtful..
Did I get this right?
Tony Rodriguez
Tony -
Shorts don't make money. That's the beginning and end of the story. There are still some of us that are happy with writing and making shorts even knowing that fact.
The examples you gave were series, not shorts. And The Twilight Zone is both a series and considered short film, and here's why - TZ episodes were all independent of one another. They were all short stories that fit the theme of the show. Also, there was a feature film version of TZ made in 1983 that was basically modern (for the time) remakes of classic episodes. Sadly it got a lot of bad press because three actors died (Including Vic Morrow) in a horrible on-set accident. That movie is another good example of a shorts anthology turned into a feature.
One thing to remember is that short films win Oscars, BAFTAS, Goyas, and Canadian Screen awards every year.
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge was aired as a TZ episode and it also won an Oscar.
It was actually totally accidental, but when I finished writing Come Along, Harry Higgins ( https://www.scriptrevolution.com/scripts/come-along-harry-higgins ) I realized that it would have been perfect as a TZ episode. I'm actually considering submitting it to contests as a spec for a classic TZ episode.
Shorts are where you develop your voice and learn your scriptwriting kung fu. A possible money making opportunity might be IF your short was picked up and turned into a feature (which you were asked to write) - This is remote, but can happen.
I'm going to respectfully disagree. Not everyone is in it for the money.
I've never been under the impression you can make a sustainable living, as in quit your day job, by selling a short script. I only question the term "short." It doesn't seem to have a universal definition.
I know of one screenwriter who recently had a short horror film locally produced by his friends and distributed using YouTube. Which makes sense in this global pandemic. Direct to online video. Running time? 49 minutes. Money? I have no idea. Probably not much, if anything. But hey, they made a movie in a global pandemic.
Shorts are (By Academy standards) are 40 minutes or less. Many, even Oscar qualifying festivals, specify that they don't accept over their own specified lengths . Most major festivals accept 40 or less, though. They are hard to program, as previously noted, but since the average length of most Oscar winners is ~30 minutes, it's not impossible to get them programmed. The year I was in contention (2016) (And by contention, meaning I had a film that qualified for potential nomination, which it did not get) the lengths ranged from 12-30 minutes with the 12 minute film winning that year. Most are ~20-25 minutes.
A 49 minute film is more of a featurette, and probably harder to market than a short. I don't consider YouTube to be distribution, since it's free to the world and anyone can post there. There's even less market for a 49 minute film than there is for a 12 minute film. As I said previously, most of us writing and making shorts don't do it for money. Many do it for practice.Personally, I do it for myself and for the love of the medium. I kind of have to since with production and festival fees the costs run into the several thousands each.
Kevin, just to clarify, the film wasn't made for any market or made in Hollywood. It was made in Seattle by a group of friends and their friends watched, all completely independent. So, a personal project you could say. Many people in the Canadian film industry got started the same way, basically shooting films in their own backyards.
Funny you mention featurette. It was one of my first thoughts when I found out. Isn't 49 minutes technically a featurette? Well, doesn't matter. It's already done.
Since Google bought YouTube, introduced mandatory monetization and the paid Premium YouTube, it's been in the process of becoming a distributor. It might be a few years yet, or decades, or it could happen by tomorrow for all anyone knows. The internet moves fast and constantly changes. I guess we'll find out. Meanwhile, there's a surprisingly large number of shorts (as in, not features) now on YouTube as well as Vimeo. It's a very different approach, far from any Academy standards and also bypasses festivals. I'm not sure if it's a stable approach but it's interesting to watch it happen right now. Or...the whole thing could blow up tomorrow. Your guess is as good as mine.
There's certainly nothing stopping someone making content within that dead-zone between a short and a feature and uploading to YouTube. There may be a gap in the market there worth exploiting. BMW did very well off the back of their The Hire series at the turn of the millennium although they were all around ten mins in length.
The issue is focusing on niche areas while hoping a random filmmaker feels the same way and pinning hopes and dreams of breaking in on that, which I see writers doing all the time in various ways. Sure you CAN put together a 40pp anthology of shorts and a filmmaker MAY want to make it but the odds are massively against you and that's before getting into monetisation.
Most filmmakers are sticking to the norms. Ten minute shorts. Ninety minute features. Proven models and regular opportunities. That's where you want to be to maximise your chances.
That all said, there is nothing wrong with having outliers in your portfolio which I personally do. Those are there as an extension of the core offering and nothing more.
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