Purpose of a Short Film

The purpose of short films is very different to the purpose of mainstream, full length films. Usually, the main purpose of short films is for self promotion of directors, so they can gain experience to become well known. In fact, most very successful directors started off this way, for example, Christopher Nolan first made short films such as Doodlebug, but he then went on to make mainstream films, such as Inception.

Another example is Panic Attack by Fede Alvarez. This film was put on YouTube only as an experiment from an unknown director, however, when it went viral with over 6 million views, he was offered a $30 million contract.

Furthermore, short films can be made for film festivals or competitions, such as film 4 film competition. This is in order to self-promote themselves to mainstream companies and to become well known.

Occasionally, some directors want to communicate a message to the audience by making what is known as a trigger film, so they have had to think about where they would show it, for example, Gravity by Colin Hutton portrayed a clear message of taking responsibility of your actions.

Moreover, short films could be made because the directors wanted to experiment what new ideas they could do and see if a certain theme works; this is why you can get challenging or alternative themes in a short film. Most of the time, experienced directors experiment with short films before they change it into a feature length film; for example, Alive in Joburg by Neil Blomkamp late became District 9.