Veksner: Do you like short films? I don’t.
February 25 2013, 8:11 am | | 16 Comments
By Simon Veksner,
head of ideas, Naked Communications Australia + New Zealand
For as long as I can remember, commercials directors have also made short films, and their producers have asked me to watch them.
Now I don’t know if I’m a lone voice in the wilderness here, but I find these films dreadful.
16 Comments
Simon likes comedy more than drama.
Ironically, Tim Bullock’s ‘Playin’Hard To Get’ is even better than the film that he eventually won Tropfest with a couple of years later. He’s a talent, that boy and all the more surprising for someone who was a mild-mannered account man at Saatchis.
I like short films. I just don’t like production companies sending me unsolicited junk mail. I like music too, but not some struggling publisher’s complementary February mix sampler.
I think it’s a case of comparing apples to oranges. Writing a short is a very different skill to writing a thirty second ad.
The same can be said about writing a feature, it’s different to writing a short.
They tend to follow different formulas, and I’m not sure your math applies: “If someone is asking me to watch a 3-minute short film, then it should be six times as rewarding as a 30-second ad, right?”
Some people just prefer apples.
I like fruit salad.
They bore the fuck out of me too.
So, you don’t like short films. Advertisements are esentially very short films, good ones are good, bad ones are shit. Most directors want to make long form work (as opposed to selling their souls making ads), a good short film is a fantastic calling card for directors, they demonstrate talent in telling a story and crafting a film. The skills that go into making ads crossover to this genre. More and more good creatives and watching shorts and appreciating the nuance, craft, dedication and skill that goes into making a great short – I agree, bad ones are dull. As a group of people looking to engage directors, particularly young ones, you should take the time – if you have the attention span, to view and engage in their projects, recognise their talent and commitment and ultimately their love of film making. Don’t be vacuous, be committed.
By the way, the reason so many commercials directors make shorts is for the sheer creative freedom of not having agency and client breathing down your neck and retracting all the creative ideas submitted and signed off on at the treatment stage.
@fan – That’s because they’re my ideas and a lot directors lose the ‘idea’ by often straying away from the simplicity of the thinking and trying to be too creative for creative’s sake.
So yeah, they’re welcome to self indulge on their own time and money, but I’m not really that bothered about watching then damn thing.
Most TVC directors have ambitions to do other stuff.
Short films are part of that ambition.
The short film ‘Alive in Joburg’ launched the director to make the feature District 9. Quite an effort.
If he didn’t make that ‘short film’ he would have robbed himself of the chance to be awarded 4 Oscar nominations and create a film that would go on to gross over $200million worldwide from a $30million prod budget.
There are numerous ways to get noticed, write great film scripts, a novel, etc or make a short film and be picked up by famous producers to create a feature.
You can’t kill the dream.
Short films are wasted on creatives. Lets be honest, most don’t have the attention span, intelligence or understanding to appreciate a piece of film making. Creatives generally tend to be vacuous, arrogant, self serving and one dimensional.
But they all want directors to use their ‘directing skills’ so their 30″ script wins as many awards as possible, then they can use that ‘award currency’ to get a promotion to a bigger agency.
Luckily for creatives there are directors out there passionate enough about what they do to invest their own time and money writing, directing, editing short films to fulfill their passion & enhance their skills, which the creatives then tap into for their own gain.
“i want my 6 minutes back’ could have not said this better myself, tried, but totally concur re passion and commitment.
I’d love to see a Director write a similar piece looking back the other way. Very sad to see someone in this industry not appreciate craft and other peoples passions and desires. The world is bigger than 30 seconds. Hear hear to “I want my 6 minutes back”
http://5secondfilms.com/
There’s a reason the t shirt says “but what I really want to do is direct” and not “but what I really want to do is be a creative director”.
There’s some fine short films on the Internet.
Hey Simon to say “the world’s most prestigious short film festival, which was held last week.” is laughable. It’s kind of like saying AWARD is the most prestigious ad festival in the world. A little show called the Oscars or Canne (and no thats not the adfest) would be the most prestigious film festival for shorts. In Australia festivals such as Flickerfest, St Kilda and Sydney display the high calibre talent.
You are obviously not a fan of the arts which is fine, but quality is out there, perhaps your misconceptions are clouding that. For most Directors a Feature Film is the Holy Grail and making shorts is part of that process. It’s sad that you are unable to read and interpret film making skills from the shorts you are seeing, perhaps you need to step it up a notch.
I’ve got the attention span of a … oh, that looks interesting…