How to open a short film?

Arguably just as important as the ending to a short film is the opening to the short film. The opening of any media product is a vital and difficult aspect to perfect, it needs the right combination of action, drama and set up and it also needs to effectively draw the audience in, without and effective opening the audience will lose interest quickly in your product or may not even gain a interest at all.

Because of this, when making any media product involving video the opening should be handled with care and have much time and effort spent on it to maximise the quality and the chances of attracting and holding your audience.

There are a few methods I could use to create an opening, much like an ending. There is the slow burn opening, with suspense and a slow introduction of characters and themes, however, with the strict time limit imposed on this project this will be unfeasible. This is why I will go for the second option which is to have a smash opening, where the audience is thrust into the movie with an action or event which sets the narrative underway quickly and effectively.

How to end a short film?

During the initial brainstorm of my coursework, the question was raised as to how exactly you end a short film. This raised an interesting question that often lingers around short films as the ending is one of the main parts of any media and while a successful, well made one creates a good impact and a long lasting positive image, a poor ending can tarnish an entire product and leave the audience with a bad taste.

Therefore I have to think carefully about how to end my short film. I could go for a quiet ending with the use of suspense. A cliffhanger, either quiet or loud which will leave the audience wanting more. Or I could end with an action sequence to tie up my plot with a high level of energy.

However, with the time constraints of this project being round about 4 minutes introduce an even bigger problem with that my ending can only be around a minute long, this is problematic as fitting any meaningful content of importance into a single minute is incredibly difficult and will have to be overcome carefully.

Analysing Short Films

To be able to produce my own short film I must first be able to know what makes a good short film good. This short guide outlined it well, giving a few useful pointers on how to analyse a media product.


Much like how a photograph is "Worth a thousand words." a film is just a series of photographs. However, these photographs are set up in a way as to convey a directors desired message and as such are often a lot easier to 'decode' than a photograph. While this may seem easier, a director needs to be able to piece these photographs together to create a coherent narrative. When I make my own short film I should keep this information in mind as while it may seem easy to just string together some visually impressive shots, I will have to be sure that it flows nicely and forwards the narrative effectively to give my film both meaning and aesthetic value.

Difficulties with chosen project

The first problem that I will encounter, as early as the research stage is finding other short films. In the current media environment, high quality short films not produced by students are hard to come by and so conducting market research and seeing what works, what doesn't and what is popular is made significantly more difficult.

However, what I believe will be the main problem I am going to have with this project, is a common problem for A level short filmmakers. This is the time restrictions, a short film is much more time consuming to produce to produce than a trailer or music video but I will have to produce a short film in the same timeframe as students producing music videos or trailers. This has the added effect of adding increased pressure which I will have to deal with throughout my project.

Research Action Plan

Existing examples:

Look at existing products of the same or in a similar genre as the one I want to produce to get an idea of production values and quality of the average product. Notice should be made of any behind the scenes footage or write-ups which can give me an insight into the production of a media product.

Audience:

Define my audience in detail (age, gender, occupation, interests) and plan to include elements that will appeal to this audience within both my main product and the side products.

Market Research:

Have a look at what is successful, what genres, styles, techniques are viable for me and what gets the best response. Further research will incorporate this as I use what I found to influence choices regarding style and other research.

Style:

Create a mood board to get an idea as to the style of my product based on both the existing examples I viewed earlier and my audience. By combining these I should have a relatively unique style to use to create my main product.