Does a short film have to have a story?

H

harmonica44

Every story I come up with is over before it starts, since I'm suppose to come up with a conflict, then rap it up right away. Not really a lot of time for things to get interesting. I have two ideas for two I wanna send into festivals. One has a bit of a story, but will have to have a ambiguous ending, but that can be intentional in an artsy way, like some movies.

The other idea is just one scene. It is a great comedy, scene and my friends laughed so hard when I told them. It's normal for friends to give flattery, but you know when they are laughing out loud for real. So can I just shoot a five minute funny scene, and have that stand out on it's own as a short, or do I have to come up with a story, where you actually know why the characters are there and what are they doing exactly?
 
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I think there should be some sort of narrative going on. Watch other short films to perhaps get a sense of the nature of creating that narrative in a limited amount of time?

I do know what you mean though. There's a reason why my one "Short" film script is forty-freaking-minutes long (first draft), or why I can't write flash fiction.
 
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Do short stories need to have a story? Yes. Same rules apply to short films. There has to be some reason for us to care about what we're watching.

Can't say I've hit a homer every time up to bat, but that won't stop me from trying.
 
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A lot of them don't have much in the way of story though. Some are jokes. Some seem pointless. I have a 15 page script and auditioned some actors for it. One comment was that the script was "Old School", in other words the script had beginning, middle, and end. I'm not saying my script is all that, just that there seems to be some fusion or blurring between music vids and narrative.
 
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I agree there has to be, unless you're doing experimental, some sort of narrative. The story quality can vary immensely, but I think there has to be some type of narrative. Now your story can be open to different intrepretations of what is going on in the narrative, but there has to be something that grabs the viewer.
 
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The audience/viewer needs to feel satisfied when credits roll. Maybe that is delivered in the form of a twist, maybe a classic ending, or something that opens up possibilities to keep them wondering, guessing, talking...

At best (akin to throwing a party) guests should feel taken care of and attended to by their host. They should feel satisfied and even wanting a bit more.
 
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Okay. I just have a great five minute funny scene to shoot. I suppose I could come up with an ending and a beginning for it, but they will both feel very arbitrary, since there is no way to come up with a story for the scene really. At least not an interesting one that can be done in 10 minutes. I will shoot the scene by itself and if I think of a story, then I'll write it.
 
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I think every short film should have a story but not necessarily in the strictest sense of story. You can play with the elements of story but to be interesting and appealing to viewers short films will need some aspect of story to draw us in.
 
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Yes, it should. Even if you're doing something experimental there should be a story that anchors the whole thing. Take David Lynch's "Eraserhead", it's very experimental and the story is quite thing, but it's still there and it anchors the entire project.
 
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Can't break the rules if you haven't learned them first... my take is that youtube is full of story free, very popular content that generates ad revenue from gazillions of impressions of funny gags and dumb humor.

As a comedy performer for the past 20+ years... even a joke has a beginning, middle and end (or as I call them in my volleyball analogy, the bump, set and spike).
 
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Can someone PLEASE tell me what EXACTLY what was the "story" in the film Un Chen Andalou ????

EDIT ..

yes Im sure Dali and Bunuel had something in mind but beat me to a pulp if I have a clue
 
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As someone who delves into the abstract and avant-garde quite a bit, I would agree with what others said about those films not having (to have) a traditional narrative structure or story as such, but there can typically be found a theme, a message, and a puzzle of imagery to piece together that settles in the mind and does make for some interesting conversations. "What did you make of it?" "Well, I thought it was about x, y, z." "That's wild, because I thought it was about a, b, c." Fun.
 
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harmonica44 said:
Okay. I just have a great five minute funny scene to shoot. I suppose I could come up with an ending and a beginning for it, but they will both feel very arbitrary, since there is no way to come up with a story for the scene really. At least not an interesting one that can be done in 10 minutes.
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Then this isn't the first one you should make.

You have made your goals clear - you want to enter film festivals.
Yet you do not attend film festivals so you have no idea what
festivals choose to show. If you are making a surrealist experimental
movie you don't need a story - it just needs to be interesting. But
a random scene that doesn't have a beginning or end is not what
people watching short films want to see.

A five minute funny movie should be like a good joke - a set up, the
story and then a good punch line. If you don't do that then you can
be quite sure that festivals will not program it. A great funny scene
is what you post on YouTube for people to laugh at.
 
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