Conventions of Short Films

A shot film can last from 5 minutes upto half an hour including all credits and illustrates reality in a factual way. The narrative structure of short films tend to be Linear, a circular narrative, subjective and restricted whearas feature length films can have more of a flexible and varied narrative structure as they have more time, money, resources and characters. Short films don't tend to have a big budget compared to a budget of a feature length film due to length of the film and the directors of the films tend to be beginners with not much experience or sponsorship behind them.

A short film tends to capture a real time snapshot of the day and tends to be based on one or two main characters compared to a feature length film which could capture years within an hour with several main and minor characters. Because short films only use one or two characters this makes the audience focus and allows them to get to know and understand the characters as the whole length of the film is about them and their part of the day.

The themes of short films can vary as they are all very different and tend to be more challenging and alternative then feature length films. The themes can vary depending on each of the short films and the director of the film as some are very violent and controversial whearas others are very simple and document something like someones life or a topic for example Sign Language documented the life of someone who holds signs on the street. If there's a purpose of a film also depends on the theme of it as if the short film was made for educational reasons then it would not be allowed to include violence and a controversial story-line depending on the age of the students watching it; it would have to educate the students on a particular topic.

The style and genre of short films can also vary on the story-line, director, budget etc as all short films are different with different story-lines, budgets, purpose and meanings so the style and genre of each of them would vary and be completely different.

The cinematography, sound, editing and mise en scene is also different that what a feat ure lengths would be. There tends to be minimal dialogue in short films whereas in feature length films the characters can have conversations and can speak clearly thanks to the equipment they use and the time they have to film the movie. There are also a greater use of voiceovers in short films compared to feature length films for example in sign language a voiceover was used in numerous occasions making the dialogue clearer and more interesting for the audience. The camera work in a short film also tends to be more realistic using a hand held camera which sets the scene and is different to a set which feature length films tend to use. There also tends to be a lot of frequent quick cuts in short films to make the audience want to continue watching it making it fast and more interesting for them to watch opposed to long clips put together which tend to be in long feature length films.

The titles of short films tend to be at the end as there's no time for them at the beginning due to it having to be from 5 to 30 minutes. The director will also try and make them look as creative and interesting as possible as they count as a part of the film and not as extra time.