Codes and Conventions of Short FIlms

odes and Conventions: Short Films

After looking at a set of short films watch on the Youtube channel set up by ‘Future Shorts’ i have devised a few comments to what i believe are the codes and conventions of short films. These codes and conventions aren’t strictly followed to the dot, but will generally be seen across the board.

The Titles will generally be the first thing you see, either that or a short clip will start playing which will have the production logo, which will usually be home made on flash or another similar program sicne they are by a non-commercialised company.

The Credits will just be like any other feature length film. These will be at the end of the film, and rather lengthy. They have all the people who took part in the movie in them, repeating the names that were shown before, if any. Depending on the atmosphere by the film it will either be quiet or have music over the top. Films with a strong impact tend to be quiet to keep the tension there.l be on just before it. In the short film ‘The Black Hole’ the title is shown, and then transitions to the first

shot via a hole transition, which strongly relates to the title, and the narrative of the film. Credits may also be shown at this point, but since it is a short film, it will be shown over the top of the clip, but these will only be the main titles, such as director and important actors.

In the Narrative of the film, there will always be a

twist. This is a part in the story which is very unexpected and of which is used to create a shock effect in the audience, keeping them gripped. A good one of these which I watch was in Spider where a soft conversation turns to the worst, and turns the whole mood of the film upside down. Also within short films directors will try portray another view of the world as they see fit, making very odd occurrences the norm, such as wearing masks. Short films will also start very slow. They try to make the movie seem as if this is reality that we are looking at, and only bring in the weirdness a bit later on, to confuse the audience, and fit in as much emotion s they can in the short amount of time they have. To make a deeper impact on the audience usually they will tend to have a creepier atmosphere e.g. have a blue filter over the top, or use a dark setting. This makes the audience uneasy, and creates more of a emotional impact.

Camera Shots tend to vary more so than in a feature length film as well. The common case of camera shot type in a short film will be variance of

the Dutch Angle as it is trying to show that everything is not quite as it seems. This will also mix in with a shaky hand held effect as they try to put a sense of realism in a world that is quite out of the ordinary, making it even stranger for the audience to watch and some-what disturbing at times, depending on the mise en scene.

Mise en Scene is very important in a short film. Since there is a smaller amount of time to set up character exposition and emotion generally they will have to sue the area around the character to fill in the gaps. Such as in 'Shame' there are shots scanning a round the house the character is in, showing pictures of family and other events, explaining what the character is talking about.

Music in short films will tend to be atmospheric. It will build up tension and release it at a climax. In  some films the same song will last throughout the film. In recent years music videos have also began to be short films in themselves, having more action based videos or investing in actors to take up roles and tell a story through the song and video.