We get asked and ask ourselves quite often, ‘what defines the length of a short film?’. In reality there is no standard length, and probably our strongest point of reference is basing ourselves on the Academy Awards submission standards, where a film running under 40 minutes falls under the short film category. But standards vary from festival to festival, as for other instances, Sundance considers films under 50 minutes as shorts.
The real question is who is your target audience? This can make a world of a difference since there is a massive gap between an online audience and a theatre audience. People who go to theaters and film festivals are mostly film fanatics, they know what they are getting into. They are also stuck in a seat for the entire length of your film with only one thing to pay attention to, so a longer short film can definitely be grasped to its potential.
The online audience is much more diluted and much harsher. These are not all film fanatics and all have something else to do. Attention span for an online viewer is cut short with the slightest distraction from not only cyber junk, but also everything around them: kids, wife, football game, etc.
In essence, if your targeting festivals the sky is your limit (sky being 40 – 50 minutes) and it all comes down to your content. But if your targeting the masses of the online audience reaching for the sky will mean a loss of audience. My general theory for a short film is to make it as short as you possibly can! Grasp your audience quick and get rid of all the boring stuff in between to keep them focused until the end. The golden timeframe for an online short is between 8-12 minutes, enough time to develop a pretty solid story without too many viewer dropouts (depending on your film of course). But I’ve seen many successful shorts that run under 5 minutes, which in fact are the ones that have the most chances of going viral!
The timestamp is the first thing people look at after the cover image, so impress them with a beautiful poster and then with a luring length. A short that takes up less of people’s time will also encourage sharing, where for the same reason people will be more likely to tell their friends about it if they know it won’t waste too much of their time. How many times have your heard “I sent you a link, watch it it’s only 2 minutes!”
Read our full article and see great length references that will help you judge where your film should be!
We want to know your thoughts from your experiences as well!
The real question is who is your target audience? This can make a world of a difference since there is a massive gap between an online audience and a theatre audience. People who go to theaters and film festivals are mostly film fanatics, they know what they are getting into. They are also stuck in a seat for the entire length of your film with only one thing to pay attention to, so a longer short film can definitely be grasped to its potential.
The online audience is much more diluted and much harsher. These are not all film fanatics and all have something else to do. Attention span for an online viewer is cut short with the slightest distraction from not only cyber junk, but also everything around them: kids, wife, football game, etc.
In essence, if your targeting festivals the sky is your limit (sky being 40 – 50 minutes) and it all comes down to your content. But if your targeting the masses of the online audience reaching for the sky will mean a loss of audience. My general theory for a short film is to make it as short as you possibly can! Grasp your audience quick and get rid of all the boring stuff in between to keep them focused until the end. The golden timeframe for an online short is between 8-12 minutes, enough time to develop a pretty solid story without too many viewer dropouts (depending on your film of course). But I’ve seen many successful shorts that run under 5 minutes, which in fact are the ones that have the most chances of going viral!
The timestamp is the first thing people look at after the cover image, so impress them with a beautiful poster and then with a luring length. A short that takes up less of people’s time will also encourage sharing, where for the same reason people will be more likely to tell their friends about it if they know it won’t waste too much of their time. How many times have your heard “I sent you a link, watch it it’s only 2 minutes!”
Read our full article and see great length references that will help you judge where your film should be!
We want to know your thoughts from your experiences as well!
